M14 secret

[michael_JCWS]

Firstly M14, love it

My question is, how on earth did they manage to keep this little project secret from the Noble fraternity, and no mention of it anywhere in the car mags !

I'm really supprised with all the customers in and out of the factory, seeing thier cars in varoius build stages, no one caught a glimps of this beast !

Joust did you have any knowledge of this previously ? I'm guessing not otherwise you might have ordered sooner.

There must be some kind of Area 51 in the dark depths on Noble country that they conduct these secret developement programs

Cheers

Michael

[stuh]

There is exactly that! A little room at the back of the Barwell factory. It has barbed wire around the door and a german shepherd pacing up and down outside

Even most of the Noble employees hadn't seen the new cars when i was there a few weeks back

[matt frost]

I had no idea of what car was going to be there but somebody at Mole Valley told me that they thought that there was to be another car completing the line-up alongside the M400 and GTC. He probably knew about it but probably wasn't allowed to tell us more.

[joust]

I hate to admit it, but whilst I was very very suspisious I didn't really know until the week before.

Going back now, if you look at some of the previous posts from the factory all the clues were there

Over the last few months Stuart & Simon have been dropping some very very subtle hints about the existance of a new car.

To give a feeling, here is the jist of a recent conversation at the meeting at Bedford of a few Noble owners

J: "So - this M400 then Simon, taken you a long time to sort it out - has it really taken you that long?"
S: "We have just been very busy lately with quite a few things"

Very subtle, and I, at the time, took it to mean the GTC, but on reflection I actually knew that the GTC had been finished by then (Stuart told me as much).

I also have a very funny email exchange with Stuart from about 4 months ago about the GTC - looking back on it it was clear that my "guesses" were correct, but he played dead pan.

Also, you'll find the the magic M14 has been banded around for quite some time (way back to end of March on here). I apologise for the bit of "distractio" that I gave to the posts after the M14 was mentioned in Autocar when between me and Simon we managed to, it seems in the main, make people think that the M14 was the GTC.

I wish I could take credit for knowing for months, but I actually think (naming no names) that some other owners new a lot more.

Finally, interestingly I know that three owners put deposits down on the "new car" during that week before the motorshow without even knowing what it was, and the factory seemed to become a "mecca of hangeron'ers" in the final week with Stuart having to "shoo" people away

I made the choice to wait until I saw the pictures before ordering one, hence a few pesky blighters sneaked in before me!

To the people that guessed quicker than me - well done!

J

[Micknall]

The M14 was indeed a closely guarded secret. Autocar were approached around three months ago, with a view to their cover story hitting the news stands last Tuesday (Motor Show Press Day, where the car was revealed in the flesh for the first time).

It was all very close, but it created a massive stir at the show and also was instrumental in us receiving 11 orders by phone on Press Day.

We also got opening news spread in Auto Express on the same day, which was a world-first sighting of that model.

Simon Hucknall
Press Officer
Noble Automotive Ltd.

[jb26413]

Well I take my hat off to you Simon, and all at Noble, a beautifully conceived bit of attention grabbing

[Stuart]

Micknall said:

The M14 was indeed a closely guarded secret. Autocar were approached around three months ago, with a view to their cover story hitting the news stands last Tuesday (Motor Show Press Day, where the car was revealed in the flesh for the first time). It was all very close, but it created a massive stir at the show and also was instrumental in us receiving 11 orders by phone on Press Day. We also got opening news spread in Auto Express on the same day, which was a world-first sighting of that model. Simon Hucknall Press Officer Noble Automotive Ltd.

I've been absolutely bloody bursting to tell someone since I first found out about it. Luckily I only actually saw pictures a few days before we went to press.