Zenos has raw dynamic appeal
Tucked behind Orchard Toys and Gym Fitness trading units on a small Norfolk business estate is a potential Lotus eater.
Zenos Cars, the brainchild of former Lotus and Caterham executives Ansar Ali and Mark Edwards, is situated just three miles from Lotus HQ. Talk about parking your tanks on the opposition’s lawn, although Edwards is keen to point out that it’s all about attracting employees with the right skills; supply chains travel, but skilled low-volume engineers don’t so much and Norfolk has the monopoly.
Zenos was launched in 2012 and has since been busy designing, taking orders for and building its E10 and upgraded E10S. The premise was to manufacture a fun, engaging, thrilling sports car with a more modern look than the open-wheeled Caterham and more accessible character than a Lotus.
Ali and Edwards took the price tag as their starting point – £24,995 – then built the car around it, sourcing the 2.0-litre engine, five- and six-speed manual gearboxes and wheel bearings from Ford, and doing the interesting bits themselves. Thus the finished product has an aluminium-extrusion beam running down its spine for longitudinal rigidity, and a body made from recycled carbon-fibre for torsional rigidity.
There are no doors or roof because, as Edwards points out, they’re hard to get right, and customers don’t expect to spend £25,000 and find a rattling door on their car. Instead, the company has been concentrating on getting the chassis and electronics right first.
They've gone to the unusual step for a niche manufacturer of putting the car through Millbrook's Pave test, which involves a 25,000-mile durability assessment. Two new models – the E11 and E12 – are planned for next year on the same platform.
This solid, step-by-step approach to building a brand from scratch is starting to pay dividends: they have had orders for 80 cars this year, with a 50 per cent export rate (12 to China in a B2B deal, eight to the US, one to Japan and the rest to Europe), and expect to grow 50 per cent next year. Investors in the company include Hugh Grant, bizarrely.
The factory is at the back of the little business unit with a band of merry men assembling each car’s 18 panels (the other starting point for the company was affordability of ownership, so in the event of a prang, only relevant panels are replaced, keeping the cost down).
We were given a black and lime green E10S to take out on to the roads; the “S” denotes a £5,000 upgrade to Ford’s Ecoboost engine with a turbo and an extra 50bhp taking it up to 247bhp, while the weight stays at about 725kg dry, giving it a power-to-weight ratio of 341bhp per tonne.
Ninety per cent of customers have ordered the S version; Edwards tells me that buyers are split between those for whom it’s a second road car and those for whom it’s a fourth or fifth, track-day car.
Our version also had the optional six-speed gearbox (£1,595), four-point harness (£165) and removable heated windscreen (£1,695).
Inside it’s all pretty minimal, with some ugly plastics, but there are two rather surprising Back-to-the-Future digital screens displaying gears, speed, revs, fuel and so on.
Hit the red electronics button to bring it to life, waggle the immobiliser and push the blue-lit pulsating starter button and there’s a whirr from the engine, intrusive but not outrageous.
Get the E10S moving, however, and that turbo soon kicks in, very loudly. It is, frankly, hilarious; I haven’t heard anything that strange since Audi took diesel R8s to Le Mans and they puffed and whined their way round. The car sounds more like a jet engine, with a loud scuff and whoosh of air every time you floor the accelerator pedal.
Edwards admits some customers hate it and want it quietened down, but I adored its strange nature.
The steering is linear and there are no nasty surprises from the chassis - it’s rear-wheel drive and will show you the back end if you floor it in a roundabout, but it signals its intentions ahead of time and is easily gathered up with another puff of the turbo.
Is the E10 a match for a Caterham Seven? That’s a matter of taste, and personally I prefer the Fifties styling and quirkiness of a Caterham. Will it trouble Lotus or Ariel? That’s a more interesting question; the E10 certainly has more raw dynamic appeal than the former.
Put it this way: if you’re after some affordable thrills on track or road, a E10 is certainly worth considering.
-The Daily Telegraph