Obsession with Ferrari’s

Since childhood, I have been obsessed with cars. The noise of their engines, the freedom and exhilaration they provide, the gorgeous shapes they come in (some more than others), etc., etc. If I have to explain all this to you, stop reading now, you wouldn’t understand. Anyways, my early passion for sleek Ferrari’s evolved into a desire for something more understated, yet equally powerful. I fell in love with the older styling techniques of nacelles and scoops and vents and curves. And I loved mixtures. Aluminum, glass, wood, leather, paint, metal, carbon fibre, wire meshes, all could be used to hint at the power, show beautiful detail, or just reek of technical brilliance.

I had always dreamt of buying an older car, with wonderful complex curves and scoops and dips, and putting modern racing technology inside. I started taking old Porsche and Jaguar photographs and changing lines or coloring in things or blocking out panels until they became my ultimate shape!

Finally, I decided to take the plunge and buy a car to experiment with. At the 1997 Palo Alto Concours d’Elegance, I found the perfect car – a beautiful old Jaguar Mark II. After some haggling with the owner (he wouldn’t budge on the price!), we decided I would pick it up from him in two weeks.

Well, two weeks came and went, and when I called him, the idiot had sold the car to someone else, despite having my deposit.

Discovering the TVR

So, having had a Jaguar Mk II slip through my hands, and feeling completely jaded about Ferrari’s (you pay a lot of money and you have a fast car) and thinking of Lamborghinis as pimps’ cars, I decided to look around at kit cars and see if I could cobble something together. All the other cars I liked were way out of my league, financially speaking, and also required a horrendous amount of maintenance and babying. And many were not available in the US. I started leafing through magazines at a local bookstore, and before long I came across an ad for the TVR Cerbera.

Here was a beautiful car with all of the styling elements I wanted. It was simply gorgeous. Muscular flanks. Aggressive stance. Porsche-style headlight channels. Long bonnet. Low roofline, with the rear window sloped more than the front windscreen, giving it that sexy hooded, aggressive look. All sorts of curves that made it look like it had been lovingly crafted, not stamped by some hydraulic press. Shotgun style xhaust pipes that looked “the business”. All wrapped in a thin, wide body, that made it look fast standing still. Plus really trick carbon-fibre A-pillars (and carbon-fibre airboxes, I have since discovered).

And the interior…oh my god! It was absolutely stunning. Swoopy curves, nothing extraneous, no electronic clutter, just simple retro brushed aluminium knobs and steel rimmed gauges and switches and stalks and simple, unlabeled buttons. Comfortable, stylish seating (even more so in real life!). Plus two kids’ seating. Plus a large trunk/boot. And there was not one angle that was badly executed.

OK, here was a great car body. I was sure with the right Mustang engine, it wouldn’t disappoint after the BMW M5 and motorcycles I was used to. That’s when I turned to the section where the performance figures were listed. I read them and…wait a minute, I read them again and again to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. Awesome horsepower. Awesome torque. Lightweight. Silly horsepower to weight ratio. Holy shit! The thing was faster than a Viper!!!! I couldn’t believe it. My dream car was being produced in mass quantities in Blackpool, England (later on I found out that the weight distribution is 50-50 even though it is front-engined).

And finally, the price. I checked several magazines to make sure I wasn’t dreaming about the seemingly reasonable price. It sounded too good to be true.

The Epiphany

All of a sudden, I was on a mission. I had to get this car. Whether I had to sell everything I owned, move to another country, whatever, I had to have this car. Every other car paled in comparison, especially when the price was taken into account. I called the TVR Centre in Barnet, England, the next day, and spoke with a Julian, who promised a test drive the following week. But I couldn’t wait that long. I called in sick at work and flew out to England the same afternoon (good ol’ Virgin), and, arriving the following morning, had my friends drive me straight out to Barnet.

It was worth it!!!! About a dozen Cerbera’s crouched on their driveway. Note that the 4.5 was not in production yet, hence only the 6-spoke wheels of the 4.2s.

After an hour of drooling and taking pictures, I went inside the showroom. A salesman tried to tell me about the Griffith. Another told me I was wasting my time and his, since TVR didn’t sell in the US. The manager came out and said that I needed to make an appointment. Then Julian came along. Having lived in Boston for a while, he was a bit more sympathetic towards “Yanks”. And he took me for a drive. After a few blasts on a motorway, we got on the country roads and within a mile he unexpectedly pulled over and asked if I would like to drive. Bear in mind that I had driven on the other side of the road for 10 years, and hadn’t slept for two and a half days.

Well, what can I say. I didn’t know what the speed limits were and to a large extent, having a foreign license, I didn’t care. I blasted up to 120 mph where I could, and maintained between 70 and 95 mph speeds on a few windy, twisty bits. Every time the road straightened out, I would feed the car some more throttle, and it would spring forward as if it was just getting started. The car cornered beautifully. I sailed around curves not believing the roadholding capability. You really have to experience being pushed into your seat by the g-forces. And it squealed the tyres at 100+…that power just never seemed to end. It would rocket forward at every opportunity. From speed! I was grinning and laughing so much it hurt! Poor Julian…he said he needed a couple of Valium when we got back! (One odd thing I do remember is noticing the lack of room around my knees, yet this is totally not an issue with the car I have now.)

Strangely enough, when I called the TVR Centre from the US the following week, Julian had left the company. Nobody else there was too interested in selling me a car when they found out I was in the US. I wonder if they knew about the import restrictions, or if they simply thought I wasn’t serious.

The planning and waiting.

Fast forward rest of 1997 and 1998. Knowing about the Cerbera 4.2, and now the 4.5, and having spent all of 1998 flying to England every month to ogle it at Goodwood or NEC or drive it at some dealer or the other, and making my friends sick and tired of talking about a car “I was not allowed to have”, I figured what the hell, let’s give it a try and attempt to bring one into the US. My only preparation: I had scoured every magazine article and internet newsgroup that was relevant to TVRs. Now it was time to do the same with importing a car. Incidentally, when I did a search on the web to research importing the car, I found a message pleading for information that I had posted two years earlier on some newsgroup!

It was now spring 1999. Also, I was finally at the point where I had almost enough saved up to get the car. I couldn’t imagine a bank approving a car loan for a car that was not being sold in the country. I killed all my traveling and extravagant expenses, got another job, started working weekends, and started saving every nickel and dime. I also started watching all my investments very closely, and read up on options trading which is very risky (don’t do it!) but pays off big if you get it right. What can I say, the gods must have been smiling…my investments did really well and in two months I cashed in with enough to buy a brand new Cerbera 4.5 and have plenty left over! No more working nights and weekends!

As a foreign citizen, I knew I was eligible for the form HS7 method, but I hadn’t thought it would work. So I started researching how to buy a TVR and make it comply with regulations here so I could import it. There were three main areas: emissions, glass, and safety items. I felt confident about the emissions because the brochures said it complied with US and Swiss standards. Glass was no big deal. That left the safety modifications. Everything there was doable (weld beams in the doors, possibly losing window movement), except for the lack of airbags. Oh, well…a $1,000 kit from Morgan or their OEM supplier should sort that out. Besides, I had a couple of friends at Ford and GM who could possibly put me in touch with the right people. All this planning and research meant the weeks were going by, and I didn’t feel like I was getting anywhere. It was now summer 1999. Also, I had become aware of a requirement that a bond had to be posted for 450% of the car’s value. Where the hell would I get that???

Well, it just so happened that I was on my motorcycle, commuting to work on a drizzly day, when I passed a blue Lotus Elise on the highway. I did a double take and locked up my rear wheel as I slammed my brakes on so he could catch up. As he came abreast, I flipped my visor up to ask the driver how he had gotten the car into the country. Every other car started honking, and so all I got was a vague idea about his email address and then it was time to move on. As soon as I got to work, I blitzed out about 15 emails to variations on the address I thought I had heard, asking my questions. One of the addresses must have been right, because he responded within a half hour, and pointed me to the NHTSA website and form HS7. I resolved then and there to use this method to get the car in the country, and then I would have a year to legalize it while it was in the country. No bond issues, no waiting for months while mechanics at some shop took it out for spin after spin on the pretext of testing it.

The scary part was that every official still claimed it was not possible or allowed. I think these people are called jobsworths in England (over here, we refer to them as assholes)! A few pointed me towards the newly allowed category of Show and Display only, or told me to contact diplomats. Would I end up buying a car and keeping it abroad? Would it be stuck in customs for months, while I paid for its storage? Would the car come here and break down? I was going crazy with the million and one questions I had, and more kept cropping up every day as I thought about it in greater and greater detail.

So I got organized. I made the following folders.

Dealers

Purchase

Warranty

Service

Shipping

Import

Customs

Duty

Questions

Contacts, web resources

I made lists, notes, game plans, contingency plans. And each day, as long as I added something to my folders, I knew I was making progress. Finally, I had enough information and questions to know that I was 80% ready. And I couldn’t go any further until I had a car. So it was time to place the order. Easy enough, I thought.

I had heard so much about Fernie’s being the best dealer in the world (they are!), but I opted to contact the Belgian dealer because he had shipped cars abroad before. Besides, I had no idea how far Fernie’s were from London. Well, the Belgian dealer (Marc) dillydallied for a month and then pawned me off to TVR Military and Diplomatic Sales, whose owner wanted to sell me a used Cerbie from Germany. I called the TVR dealer in Japan, but nobody there spoke English or returned my calls. Same with the guys in Germany…I think I only got an answering machine there. The guy in New Zealand had never sold a Cerbera. He was getting ready to bring the first one in to New Zealand. And the dealer in Hong Kong had only an older 4.5 available.

So I figured I would just contact the London dealers, HR Owen and TVR Centre in Barnet, and place an order for a new one with whoever had the lowest price. HR Owen easily beat TVR Centre by a couple of thousand pounds, and despite Tim Kearns’ (from TVR Centre at the time, he has since left and joined HR Owen) email telling me I should not buy on price alone, I figured that all other things were equal since I was not planning on having any service done. Thus I ended up calling HR Owen and placing my order…they would be convenient to get to, and also selling other exotics, would be very experienced and helpful. Hah!

H R Owen

I called them and discussed various color options with a Russell. He was very quick to take down my AmEx card number for the deposit. He kept referring to Ferrari colors and Rolls Royce options. Eventually he faxed me a deal sheet and then disappeared. For two weeks I didn’t have my calls returned. I wanted a Cosmos Blue Cerbera 4.5 with a magnolia interior, magnolia mats with blue piping, magnolia steering wheel, standard dials and gauges, air-conditioning, half-hide, blue carpets (mats go on top of this), and no stereo. Is that really so hard?

After a couple of weeks, I got a hold of one Nick Mason who told me that Russell was on vacation. He kindly offered to send me a sample of Cosmos blue. All he ever sent me was a fax of the deal sheet instead. It was now late August, 1999. I was really curious to see the car in build, but nobody at HR Owen or the factory returned my calls about the factory tour. A Sue Stoker at the factory was very curious as to how much I was paying for the car, but wasn’t too much help with anything. I was told repeatedly, however, that TVR did not want any of their cars in the US due to “liability issues”. Once I was also told that there were two Chimaeras and a Griffith stuck at various ports, and waiting to be shipped back because the owners had been unable to obtain clearance to bring the vehicles into the US.

So, with much trepidation, I placed the order. I signed the deal sheet and faxed it back, and copied and mailed the original back too.

A week later, when I called HR Owen again, Russell was still unavailable, and Nick Mason said he would be handling my transaction from this point on. I had several questions about the car by now, and called and left several messages but never got a call back. Worried, I started calling every morning my time, which was just about 5pm in London. Every day. And my calls were NEVER returned. A month and a half went by like this. I had racked up a sizeable phone bill and was beginning to get just a little bit annoyed. Still, no response.

Finally I called and asked to speak to any salesperson. Whoever came on said that I needed to speak to Nick Mason. Aaaaagh. Same thing again the next day, at which point I demanded to speak to the manager, who turned out to be a smooth talking bitch named Lisa Ford. Car salespersons come in both male and female varieties!!! She assured me that Nick would call back (he never did) and that I would get the paint sample (I never did).

Eventually, I did get an email from Nick saying that he hoped I was not canceling my order. And he gave me a delivery date. Which was completely different from the delivery date I was getting from the factory when I called them directly. Also, a new Cerbera body style had been revealed at the motorshow, and while the car benefited from a 45kg trimming of weight, it had a bubble roof and no visors, and most significantly for me, a very ugly redesign of the front headlights. I asked Nick to confirm that I was getting a 4.5 Cerbera with the regular headlights. He did confirm this, on several occasions.

So it came to pass that Nick Mason sent me a specific delivery date. I duly booked my flight, and got to London and took the tube to South Kensington. Trundling my suitcase behind me, I spotted an HR Owen as soon as I came out of the tube station, only to find that it was full of Rolls Royces. A bunch of snooty people took one look at my unshaven but very enthusiastic (dragging a suitcase) state as I stumbled in, and very haughtily directed me to their other showroom further down the street. Thanks a lot, you stuck-up jerks. You could have at least offered me a coffee or a ride to your other showroom once you learned I was a customer!

OK, well I made it to the right showroom, where a very shocked Nick Mason claimed he had never sent me the email and the car was not ready. A few phone calls later, it transpired that the car would not be ready for a while, and that it would have the new nose and headlight arrangement which I did not want. I would have been willing to wait, but I really did not want the new style car. And then Nick introduced me to the manager, Lisa Ford, who wanted a 1000 pounds for each week of storage until I could pick the car up. Cunt. I called up Sue Stoker, who suggested that I simply cancel the order since it was not the car for me (what she was implying was that I was not the kind of customer that TVR wanted). So I did, except Lisa Ford wanted to keep my deposit of 5,000 pounds. A bit of ranting later, she returned 4,000 (and I resolved to get the other 1,000 as well, which I eventually did. I learnt then that TVR was a company with an attitude and could not be pushed around like the big American manufacturers who will do anything to get your business. In fact, I have grown to greatly like and respect all the TVR people I have met over the years. TVR as a company has an “official” attitude and reputation, but in person, the people are fantastic and very helpful. In many ways, this is a good attitude, because it lowers your expectations and stops you from being disappointed later on.

At any rate, HR Owen pissed me off big time, ripped me off 1,000 pounds, and didn’t deliver the Cerbera. I can understand production delays at the factory. But Nick Mason should have stayed on top of it and been far more responsive to me. And he should not have confirmed a delivery date when it wasn’t confirmed and he should not have told me to come pick the car up when it wasn’t ready. I could forgive all this because I was so in love with the car, but I could never forgive the fact that the screw-up occurred due to them telling me to come to England at a certain time, and then withholding my money, claiming that they had never sent that email. Stupid twats. I got my revenge by having a friend not buy a Rolls Royce from them (he used to trade his in regularly every year at their snooty store) and instead get it from another dealer. We both drove up to the shitheads and explained how their lousy attitude had cost them not only that sale, but all future sales from both of us as well.(update, Tim Kearns joined HR Owen, and helped me get my money back…my friend has now gone back to buying his Rollers from them since they are very conveniently located for him).

Oh well, I came back to America, nursing my wounds, and went on vacation to Venezuela, thinking I’d buy a Porsche or Ferrari and get it all over with. But the Cerbera obsession persisted. I found myself surfing TVR-related websites in Caracas, and even while staggering around on Margarita Island, and looking at TVR Cerbera pictures on my PDA while lurching about over the Caribbean in some little charter plane. I knew I had to have/experience this car. It was the only car for me, HR Owen be damned.

CRIC Motor Works (Hong Kong) Plc

So after the first car-buying foray which resulted in utter disaster, I decided to rekindle my connections with the dealers abroad…they might be better able to sidestep complications with the factory and sell me a car. After numerous calls around the world, I found myself on a plane to Hong Kong…I was planning on boring you with yet another heartfelt essay, but just click on the link below to see how I ended up getting my Cerbera (and flying around the world).

Purachase of a TVR Cerbera 4.5 in Hong Kong.

Another trip to England

OK, so now I had the Cerbera in America. Great. Life was just bitchin’…but now I had to worry about servicing, etc. I decided to make contact with the dealership I had heard such great things about, Fernhurst Motorcars, south of London somewhere. I called them to ask if I could come and learn about Cerbies, and the service manager there, Brian, was most accommodating. So I flew over with my pal, and they spent a whole day showing us every detail of the car. I felt much more comfortable after that. But that wasn’t enough! They went out with us for drinks later on. And have stayed in touch and always delivered on their promises. Nice bunch of guys. Another ace guy there who I must mention is a mechanic named Woody. He not only gave huge amounts of time and advice, but also showed us how to drive the demo Tuscan they had just received. If you want a hair-raising experience, I suggest you ask him to drive in a “spirited” manner. I just sat back and enjoyed the ride, thinking I was in safe, capable hands. Only later, over drinks, did Woody see fit to mention that he thought the steering was twitchy and the car had felt unstable during the ride…and he had been a bit “worried”. Two other good guys there…Graham and Simon. Anyways, all top blokes at this dealership.

Factory Support

Somehow the factory found out about my car in the US, and they faxed me a letter saying they could not honor the warranty—they also called up and banned all the UK dealers from selling me parts,. I didn’t really care…I now felt I understood the car enough that I could fix it myself. Parts for free would have been nice, but what the hell. I could scan their letter and post it here, but I don’t want to jeopardize the ties I have built up on a personal level. While we pretend to ignore each other officially, I have made a great bunch of friends at the factory and don’t have any problems with support.

Since the factory had initially refused to provide support in any way, I am mostly dependent on the kindness of fellow Cerbera owners and understanding dealers who order and ship parts on my behalf. The car would not be running without them and their efforts. A very heartfelt thanks to this community of wonderful people.

Having A TVR Cerbera in the US

Most of the issues that have come up are covered on my main page…as most of you know, I have immensely enjoyed it, and am continuing to do so. The cars have been rock solid and reliable, except the time I tried to push a hill with one…!

Track days

So far, track days have totally sucked. I have been to two. One was so overcrowded that they allowed SUVs and racecars out at the same time. It was impossible to find an empty stretch where I could practice my own lines and see if I could improve cornering speeds or change braking points. The second one was so disorganized that by the time everything was sorted, I had paid $320 for 15 minutes of track time. And by the time I was allowed out on the track, just one minute remained before our group was told to get off. I managed one lap in an exhibition (no passing allowed) round, stuck behind a boxster. I made a fuss and got a refund but I had killed a morning and driven two hours there and back – complete exercise in pointlessness. So, no more track days for me. Not over here at least. Nasty rush hour commute battles, highway cruising, and twisty, scenic roads only from now on. Plus, Martin Short (driver of the Cerbera GT in the British GTCC series) has promised to come over and give me some pointers. Time to scout out nice, empty parking lots and gather some cones for my own little autocrosses.

Lessons learned

I am still not done with cars

The best thing is not the car, but the camaraderie of the Cerbera user groups.

A close second is the instant conversation topic I have. Easy to meet anyone. Leads to great experiences and contacts.

Common questions and answers (with variations when I am bored):

What is it?

It’s a car. (It’s a space ship/building/legal document/sorreee, no speaka da eengleeesh)

What kind of car is it?

It’s a TVR Cerbera. (Rolls Royce/Bentley/Ford/kit car/something I designed myself)

Never heard of it.

OK. So what’s the question? (I know. Have you heard of England?)

Is it fast?

Yes. (No/Depends/Faster than everything behind)

Is it expensive?

Well…no. (Yes, very/I don’t know, it’s not mine/It was a gift)

How much does it cost?

None of your business. (It cost $1 million before taxes/Dunno, it was a gift)

How did you get it into the country?

I shipped it in. (I bought it from Kmart/local collector/ Don’t know anything about it)