Ok so who thinks this site is better than....

[Paul Hurdsfield - Joint Manchester AO]

He He that'l get em goin  

[catflap]

The people are not rood  

Well some of the blatters are a good bunch, but some very stuck up.

[7 Heaven]

They have to defend their expensive purchases and justify it to themselves    

JOhn

[SteveD]

having had a caterfield i can say that the westham boys are a far better bunch not like the coctail drinkin lets spend 90 million on my car caterfield crowd     ahhhhhhhh its nice to be back                  

[Paul Hurdsfield - Joint Manchester AO]

I dont think I've ever seen anyone on 'our' site slag off other

se7en type cars like they do over there, at the end of the day

we are all driving something a bit special, whether it cost £3,000 or £30,000.

[Westfieldman]

£30,000 that will be the basic one then  

[westy]

theres a R500 up for sale at c******m with one previous owner for 37.5k

[gee_fin]

Was out in R500SAC last night, I can honestly say that the price is more than justified. It's one helluva a quality product, blindingly fast and yet very refined.

Would I buy one? Not sure, you could build a quicker car for that kind of money, however, it's not going to be as well finished, it's not going to sell for £30k+ after a year of ownership, if there are problems with it you're not going to have a factory that will look after you etc. etc. At £35-£40k it's still the best value c******m out there and in many respects, a bargain.

Still a kit-car with a Metro engine mind you....

Graeme.

[rkenyon]

Still a kit-car with a Metro engine mind you....

You had me worried there for a minute, until I read the above line, I thought you had been kidnapped by aliens and someone else was using your pc.

[juansolo]

you could build a quicker car for that kind of money

...and have a substantial amount of change.

however, it's not going to be as well finished

I suppose that depends on who builds it and how good they are.  I aggree that c******ms are very well made out of the box but that's not to say that a very good builder couldn't build an alternative to as high, or a higher standard.  There is still room for improvement on the c******m.

it's not going to sell for £30k+ after a year of ownership

Fair point.  Similar depreciation to a non-kitcar sportscar...

if there are problems with it you're not going to have a factory that will look after you etc. etc

If?!  We all know that these things go pop on a regular basis

 Also, as you're buying their £35k flagship model, their support should be bl**** good.

At £35-£40k it's still the best value c******m out there and in many respects, a bargain.

I think you have gone quite mad.  BookaBeard reckons he can build you a new Nutter for £20k OTR.  Badge, heritage and prettyness aside is the factory support worth £15-20k?  Also as it costs a lot less, you have a lot less to lose in depreciation.  I can see you losing half it's value in a couple of years and it'll pretty much stay there.  I expect this is pretty much in line with the R500 (£10k in a couple of years), you've just not had the hoooge initial outlay.  Then you've got the £1000 every 3000 track mile rebuild costs for the R500 that are not an issue with the S2000 engine.

[gee_fin]

We've gone over the issues of R500 reliability many times over on BaT/Buzzez so it's not really worth regurgitating it all over again on here. Suffice to say, since the initial problems blow-ups are very rare, all cars since being retrofitted with modifications. If it is a design fault or there is no outside reason (e.g. over revving/gunning from cold etc.) for a failure the factory have replaced the engine. That's a £14k engine being replaced by the factory free of charge. Regardless whether it was your £2k Vauxhall or £14k Minster unit that is a stunning level of service.

I would also be very, very surprised if c******m make a single penny on any of the R500s they sell, to me, they have to be selling them at a loss considering the cost of the components that make up one of the cars.

I don't doubt the build quality of Beard's Project Nutter but it's still not going to be up to the quality of the c******m item. When you're building with lower quality components the final product is not going to be as good no matter what your preperation skills.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not about to go out and buy a c******m/R500 and I realise I'm opening the floor to a flaming this being a non-Cateram forum. However, the R500 is the ultimate package out there in terms of performance and quality, the results and tests bear that out. Heritage, resale and badge mean nothing to me, quality and value for money do though.

Won't catch me rallying a DeDion though

Graeme.

[juansolo]

You'll notice the winking smiley next to the detonation comment, t'was only kidding (kissy, kissy).

As for it being the ultimate package, I dissagree.  On build and presentation + performance, yes it is.  But for performance, running costs and value (fairly high on a racer/trackday goers list of priorities) BaB's finest kills it dead.  The R500 may be a better handler (...or maybe not...) but it ain't £17k better.  Imagine the work you could do on Nutter to redress that balance for that money.  Also, with the correct final drive any advantage speed-wise that the R500 has would become very small and in theory the S2000 engine should realise a higher top speed.  I've not gone into reliability as there are a fair few R500's out there that have had teething troubles and at present there is only one Nutter so there is no way of comparing them.

[juansolo]

Also, I'm only using Nutter as an example.  If Westfield still made the FW400 there would be no reason that you couldn't bolt a PTP220 engine into it and you would have a very interesting alternative dispite it running a K *spit*

But TBF, there aren't really any competetors to the R500 out there at all at the mo'.  Nutter is (potentially) a one off and I only used it as an example of what you can do for half the price.  The Megabusa, though quick, ain't R500 quick.  I don't really think anyone else makes something that is comparable to it that is available for anyone to buy.  Kudos to c******m for building it and keeping it in production.

[gee_fin]

Well, a difficult one to judge really. We won't know how quick BaB's Nutter is until it does some times (back to that old chestnut). Remember though, it's not the first, there is another one out there, well, it's not the S2000 engine but it's just as mad a VTEC (Ian Stinton's 300bhp monster shoe-horned in by Plays-Kool).

I think most people see the £40k price tag for the R500 and say "no Se7en is worth that amount", I know I certainly did. However, when you actually break down the components, the materials and the engineering involved in the car you quite quickly see where the money goes (and see that the R500 is quite likely the best-value for money c******m in the range).

As said earlier, I'm sure that anyone on this forum could spec a Westfield/c******m/Tiger/Sylva etc for £40k that would rival the R500 in performance terms, however, it would be a completely unproven, unsupported package and no doubt end up costing a significant amount more than at first thought. All the development and design would have to come from yourself and be done from scratch.

Just out of interest, did you see the times from the recent showdown at Curborough with the 300bhp Vx, 255bhp K, R500s, 340bhp BDx, etc. etc. Impressed the #### out of me.

As for the R500 vs Nutter debate, well, if I had £20k I would consider Nutter, if I had £40k I would consider the R500. End result? I'd probably buy a Radical

Graeme.

[gee_fin]

Oh yes, an FW400 with an R500 engine. Now that would be interesting