Thursday 30th January 2003

FBS Census On Track

FBS introduce track day options list for Census

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[jamesc]

It's great to see that one of the best handling cars can be made even greater. FBS offers a car for all seasons at the right price.

James

[anonymous-user]

Unfortunate quirk of lighting and angle: looking at the bottom left photo I thought it had taken some some side impact damage.

[Alex]

I don't care how well it drives, it still looks awful. Sorry.

[RichB]

You know that Puegeot advert where the Indian lad gets an elephant to sit on the front of his car...

[egomeister]

I admit I am not a great fan of the FBS looks, but I do think that this "track spec" version looks a lot better than the road car. I can't really put my finger on why, but the wheels and lowered suspension definitely make it look a lot more purposeful. Best of luck to them.

[Alex]

RichB said: You know that Puegeot advert where the Indian lad gets an elephant to sit on the front of his car...

Notice that it changes from right to left hand drive too. Funny that...

[v8thunder]

Maybe it'll get redesigned as it gets more popular. Apparently it was designed by 'a student of Pininfarina' but I can only assume it was the work experience kid. TVRs didn't really look that amazing when they burst onto the scene in the late '50s/early '60s. Maybe it is the start of something. Tiff Needell certainly loved testing it.

[RichB]

v8thunder said:TVRs didn't really look that amazing when they burst onto the scene in the late '50s/early '60s.

From that comment I assume you were not a schoolboy in the late 50's / early 60's? Remember such "good looking" cars as the Frog Eye Sprit and the TR3A, by comparison th eGranturas were (to my eye) good looking sports coupes. There was a yellow Tuscan (Manx tail) that used to live around the corner from me - would have been mid 60's - which I used to gawp at and peer inside (to see how fast it would "go" like we all did!) every morning on my way to school. Certainly looked like a real sports car to my untrained 11 year old eyes! Rich...

[joe90]

"the wheels and lowered suspension definitely make it look a lot more purposeful"

Both are also available on the standard road car although we would recommend a compromise ride height for most road users.

[lyons]

I'm sure its a very nice thing to drive - but if ever there was a car in need of an urgent re-skin, this is it!

[dans]

sure a bit more purpose makes this look a bit better, what I fail to get here is that a site full of petrolheads with the cash to buy this car are telling you that it looks shit, But that if it drives as well as it is said to then fix the looks and they'd be down at your place for a test with a warm chequebook in case it is good. Yet when they say this you don't listen, you just get cross, sure it is your baby, but this kind of customer interaction is something that your competition would kill for, use it, don't squander it.

I had a look at the one on the motorshow stand, and frankly it was an utter joke, the hood was worse than that on my old triumph spitfire, the interior was straight out of the Lada design and build department and the panel gaps were big enough to house whole families of asylum seekers. That is before I get to the designed by the home secretary looks. The comments here are not born of ignorance, alot of the readers on here have things like TVRs Lotuses and other british plastic exotica, so we know about dodgy design and build.

As I understand you guys Joe90 and the other FBS people are engineers and the census is consequentially a well engineered car - it must be not far off a Noble in some respects, but you are not designers.

Best thing I can suggest is that you run a competition on here to help design a new interior and exterior for the car, no commitment on your part, because the cost of building a replacement must be high, but realistically, it may be your only hope for making the engineering package sell. I think setting up a company as ou have done on a shoetstring and getting this far is amazing, far more than an armchair critic like me would do, but I think that you are not listening to the armchair critics and you need to.

>> Edited by dans on Friday 31st January 17:16

>> Edited by dans on Friday 31st January 17:20

>> Edited by dans on Friday 31st January 17:24

my spelling needs work - comes of being stuck on the M11 for then night

>> Edited by dans on Friday 31st January 17:27

[johnny senna]

Very ugly.

[v8thunder]

Maybe it's the new Marcos. The first Marcos racers looked like old boots with wheels but their performance and handling transcended that until they became properly 'designed'. All it needs really is a bit of pedigree, like Marcos has Jackie Stewart.

[sublimatica]

If only the Census could have looked like this:

(www.fbscars.co.uk/Gallery_high_density/office_photo.htm)

I dunno who these guys are, but their clay model looks a damn sight better than the real thing. Low and sleek, with wheel-hugging arches, big sexy wheels and no panel gaps. No wonder FBS signed up for this design. It's a far cry from the short, tall dumpling with Proton alloys that we see in the photos.

I'm amazed that the proud new owners of the first five cars sold have accepted the panel gaps that we've seen in the photos. The hard edge that runs continuously from one front wheel around the rump to the other front wheel is so badly broken by the doors, which never meet the same line:

(www.fbscars.co.uk/Gallery_high_density/prod2_hardtop_side.htm)

Ah well.

[Pictures linked from the Census website, without permission. Sorry ]

[lonman]

Seriously bloody horribly natsy to look at.....

[danmangt40]

it's so ugly, it isn't even attractive in that "my god, what have they done with it" way that the M coupe was initially considered ugly. This is a badly mangled version of what has been listed above/before as an excellent small sports car design. very nosey little car.... kind of like they started (at the nose) to build it a certain size, then as they went further backward, needed to squeeze it into a certain max dimension. All I know is that there will never be a line for US buyers to purchase this car

[joe90]

Ref. Sublimatica's choice of picture, the more fair minded amongst you might want to look at the most recently car built rather than one built a year ago:

[pic] www.fbscars.co.uk/Gallery_high_density/prod4_24Dec02.htm [/pic]

Ref. the model, the trouble with styling models and concept cars is that stylists don't have to worry about ride and handling (hence the 20 inch wheels with 10 section tyres) or making a vehicle useable (hence the lack of panel gaps). That's not just us, anyone who knows anything about automotive engineering can see a vast number of illegal and / or impractical features on almost any concept car are styling model.

[sublimatica]

joe90 said: Ref. Sublimatica's choice of picture, the more fair minded amongst you...<snip>

Sorry - I wasn't picking the worst example I could find, although you may think so. I chose the first picture I saw in which the car was side-on to mimic the model.

joe90 said: Ref. the model, the trouble with styling models and concept cars is that stylists don't have to worry about ride and handling (hence the 20 inch wheels with 10 section tyres) or making a vehicle useable (hence the lack of panel gaps). That's not just us, anyone who knows anything about automotive engineering can see a vast number of illegal and / or impractical features on almost any concept car are styling model.

Agreed. But there are plenty of other slightly wacky cars around with apparently much better body build quality. Many other companies (Marcos, TVR, etc.) may have more cash to throw at the design/production stage to achieve this, but many kit-car manufacturers don't, and lots of those seem OK to my untrained eye.

I'm sure the panel fit will improve with time, though, and I wish you success as you tread this worn and rocky road to long term production. However, along with many others in here I feel that the stylists' pens did not give you a good start. Bloody students!