Swiss ban Caterhams

[Altstetten]

Anyone else seen this:

http://www.kumschick.com/unternehmen/news/caterham...

Basically seems to say that due to new pedestrian protection laws, no Caterhams can be imported into the country after the end of the year.

Pretty sad news. Quite a big sevens community here too I think (Ansar Ali blogged about going to a Swiss sevens meetup in St Moritz).

[UltimaCH]

Jeez, what stupid and ridiculous new rule have we Swiss invented AGAIN...

[Alex]

Next, the EU come up with a similar rule...

[Schnellmann]

Why am I not surprised? What is really annoying is that the Swiss mountain passes and country roads are perfect territory for a Caterham.

On the flipside...perhaps this is good news for me. I have been thinking about buying a Caterham and I assume that the inability to buy a new one after this year will do wonders for the residual value.

[snowmuncher]

Am I right in thinking the core of this is to do this the Cateram 7's front wheel design ?

Is so are all similar cars affected ? (eg atoms, etc)

[Whitean3]

snowmuncher said:

Am I right in thinking the core of this is to do this the Cateram 7's front wheel design ?

Is so are all similar cars affected ? (eg atoms, etc)

Given that you can't legally register an Ariel Atom here for road use, I guess so!

[Roop]

They should ban pedestrians. They are like lemmings here in Suisse Romande.

I expect this doesn't apply if you bring the car in as a personal import. My car didn't meet various criteria when I brought it to CH but sneaked through under personal import regs. Obviously, you are screwed if you already live here.

[BernB]

You'd have thought they would make some exception for low volume car manufacturers. Presumably the Morgan 3-wheeler is also banned ?

I'd wager my stash of bacon that there's never been an incident in Switzerland where a pedo has been run over by a Caterham...

[anonymous-user]

The same thing happened in 2010 about no new Caterhams in Switzerland from January 2011.
Apparently "something" happened to postpone it?

[chandrew]

There is a decent chance Morgan are on their last year in Switzerland. The 3 wheeler is technically a motorbike so has different rules.

[KernowSwiss]

Unfortunately it’s true.

Speaking with the dealer (Kumschick) the deal basically is that as long as the car is imported by the end of December it's OK.
The car can then be registered later. They’ve ordered a bunch of cars to carry them through some of next year, but then that’s it.

It’s a big shame and is what motivated me to finally buy one. So last Friday I put my order in for a new CSR.
Interestingly they had a pile of orders (about 18 cars) ready to go out…

[Schnellmann]

I think the chance has gone to order one. I was speaking with them last week and they said I had to order by last Friday as they are now on business holiday and had to order by August. Was thinking of ordering but couldn't decide in time.

[KernowSwiss]

You may stil be lucky, they gave me a provisional delivery date of mid November......

[BernB]

Is the ban just for new cars ?
So you could still import a secondhand one after the deadline ?

[AndrewD]

If you visit Kumschick ask to see his underground car park. Alladin's cave for a petrolhead

[Schnellmann]

AndrewD said:

If you visit Kumschick ask to see his underground car park. Alladin's cave for a petrolhead

Do tell! When I first visited him about 11 years ago he had three or four Bugatti 110s that I think were for sale but not sure. Does he still have them? What else? He also used to race in historic F1. Any of those left?

[AndrewD]

I can't remember it all now, but there was an EB110, an historic F1 complete with DFV, group C spice, etc etc. packed to the rafters with nice stuff. Oh and an ex Senna JPS F1 chassis

[chandrew]

And an ex Senna Camel Lotus F1 car.

[S3000]

im so unhappy to live here..