Factory for Nik Smolenski
Discussion
Sir I believe you have made a mistake!
jagdpanther said:
Marcos have already done that themselves without the help of our young fiend [
]....It seems Marcos have even more experince than TVR of going t*ts up..
Though wasn't the last Marcos try at business attempted by a different group of people to the time before? Doesn't seem fair to say the mark has the problem when its different people everytime that c*ck up...]....It seems Marcos have even more experince than TVR of going t*ts up..
eLSerbera said:
Though wasn't the last Marcos try at business attempted by a different group of people to the time before? Doesn't seem fair to say the mark has the problem when its different people everytime that c*ck up...
Yes, different owner. If anything, I would make the opposite argument to you: if it were the same owners every time, that would seem to suggest that it's the owners who are at fault; if it's different owners, that would suggest that it is the fault of something that is common to all of the ownerships, i.e. the marque. Of course, the reality is probably far more complicated than this.Please correct me if I'm wrong (I didn't have TVR at the time so wasn't observing closely) but isn't it the case that NS 'paid' over £10m for the business but in reality paid a fraction of that in actual cash and took on millions in debt for the remainder? If so, it begs the question of how this (probably growing) debt could have been reduced/extinguished by the previous owner and given time would the unhappy outcome not have amounted to much the same as it did?
I know these arguments have been rehearsed over and over on other threads but is the truth not that the demise of the business is rooted in a long period of dreadful publicity, caused by, amongst other things, unacceptable reliability issues from leaking / non-starting Chims to 'fragile'
S6 engines in the 'T' models?
My own initial experience with the 'dealer network' was the worst I have ever experienced. When I started to look for a car, my local 'official' dealer had not one single used Chimaera in stock and had just been rescued from adminitration by a managenment buy-out. So I travelled 70 odd miles to another where having seen and driven the car I'd decided I wanted to buy (a 1 owner 2002 Chimaera 450), I was treated with so much indifference that I concluded 'no wonder TVR aree going out of business'. I know naming and shaming isn't appropriate here but that experience was truly unbelieveable!!
I have no connection whatsoever with NS and have never met him. But from what I understand, quality and relaibility issues were improved substantially during his relatively short period of ownership. It therefore seems a little unfair to credit him with 'messing up' what we all love so much when the seeds for the downfall were almost certainly sown before he even appeared on the doorstep! Nick.
I know these arguments have been rehearsed over and over on other threads but is the truth not that the demise of the business is rooted in a long period of dreadful publicity, caused by, amongst other things, unacceptable reliability issues from leaking / non-starting Chims to 'fragile'
S6 engines in the 'T' models? My own initial experience with the 'dealer network' was the worst I have ever experienced. When I started to look for a car, my local 'official' dealer had not one single used Chimaera in stock and had just been rescued from adminitration by a managenment buy-out. So I travelled 70 odd miles to another where having seen and driven the car I'd decided I wanted to buy (a 1 owner 2002 Chimaera 450), I was treated with so much indifference that I concluded 'no wonder TVR aree going out of business'. I know naming and shaming isn't appropriate here but that experience was truly unbelieveable!!
I have no connection whatsoever with NS and have never met him. But from what I understand, quality and relaibility issues were improved substantially during his relatively short period of ownership. It therefore seems a little unfair to credit him with 'messing up' what we all love so much when the seeds for the downfall were almost certainly sown before he even appeared on the doorstep! Nick.
nikman said:
I have no connection whatsoever with NS and have never met him. But from what I understand, quality and relaibility issues were improved substantially during his relatively short period of ownership. It therefore seems a little unfair to credit him with 'messing up' what we all love so much when the seeds for the downfall were almost certainly sown before he even appeared on the doorstep! Nick.
That's probably the case. I've always been a little sceptical myself that Smolenski was responsible on his own for TVR's downfall. It makes no sense at all that he would throw millions away for no good reason.But we all like a Bad Guy to blame, and if they're foreign that's even better, it makes the story easy to understand.
I reckon (strictly from an ignorant layman's POV, natch), it was a combination of youthful naivety (and too much indulgence by Dad?) and being sold a pup by someone a little less naive.
madbadger said:
TVR moneypit said:
convert said:
jagdpanther said:
Yeah, but he changed his name and I thought the original chappie had vanished in a canoe
All sorted now
Nah his canoe leaks All sorted now
... coolant 
Still. 
I'm sure the PW vs NS blame game will go on and on... but if the business was in trouble he should have worked at it, adapted, listened and compromised with people outside of his 'yes man' inner circle.
If he wanted out he should have either sold the business and absorbed the loss or stayed with it until the business was in a position to get him back the money he put in.
Now he appears to have done the latter... TVR may or may not come back.. We'd all love TVR to come back but most of us believe that nothing will come of the current situation
Personally, if he's as spoilt and ruthless as people have made out... he may just hold onto the TVR brand just to irritate us and when he's made another billion from something else he'll sell TVR cos it just won't matter to him any more.
who knows ??
If he wanted out he should have either sold the business and absorbed the loss or stayed with it until the business was in a position to get him back the money he put in.
Now he appears to have done the latter... TVR may or may not come back.. We'd all love TVR to come back but most of us believe that nothing will come of the current situation
Personally, if he's as spoilt and ruthless as people have made out... he may just hold onto the TVR brand just to irritate us and when he's made another billion from something else he'll sell TVR cos it just won't matter to him any more.
who knows ??
GJR said:
I'm sure the PW vs NS blame game will go on and on... but if the business was in trouble he should have worked at it, adapted, listened and compromised with people outside of his 'yes man' inner circle.
Spot on IMO. Yes, he was young and naive, yes he was arguably sold a pup, but I think it is fairly well documented on here and elsewehere that it was his inability too look and listen beyond his entourage consisting of folks who by the sounds of it were/are little more than incompetent arselickers and ousting the ones who had a vague idea of what was going on and how to run the show in accordance that did the final damage or at least accelerated the demise. You can't fault the man for his enthusiasm for the brand and at least having identified the main weaknesses undermining it at 'face level' (quality control and products consistently lacking the final 5% of development) but the way he subsequently went about curing the underlying causes never made any sense to me. And if you are stuck with a brand with plenty of kudos, but suffering a huge lack of confidence from stakeholders and the public in it, the last thing you want to do is bring in people ho have no reputation or even a shady one to help run the show.
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