CALIBURNUS : PROJECT 300MPH
Helo!* I’m Simon Coggle, co-founder and Disruptor-in-chief of Caliburnus Automotive, the start-up aiming to beat Bugatti to build the frst 300mph production car. Now, if you think running Wales’s most exciting supercar company means a life of schmoozing millionaires, and rebufng the advances of Europe’s least inhibited supermodels, you’ll be as surprised as I was to discover it involves a whole lot of hard work, tough decisions and heated meetings with strong-minded investors.
For example, this week we were treated to a welcome, but surprise, visit from Dimitri, one of our biggest, and indeed widest, backers.
“Coggle, I see you hiding behind water cooler. Answer door or I smash door down and cut your bloody feet of,” he greets me with his customary ribald humour.
Once I retrieve my biro from behind the water cooler and let Dimitri in, I discover he has a few interesting thoughts on the company’s direction of travel.
“Coggle, how you spend my bloody money?” he asks. Never been able to place his accent. Glasgow, maybe? “Four million pounds, no factory, no parts, no mechanics. Not even bloody sketch of car.”
I explain to him that’s a very Car 1.0 way of thinking.
“Car is a one point zero?” asks Dimitri. “My babushka’s Lada has bigger engine than that.”
No, I say. In this era of 3D printing and modular platforms and next-day Amazon delivery, the actual process of designing and building a car is the work of a moment. Instead, I tell Dimitri, the frst thing a start-up looking to shake up the staid work of supercars must do is build its brand. Millennials, I explain, will only align a company philosophy synergistic with their own creative mindspace.
“And I thought my bloody English was bad,” he says.
I walk Dimitri around the glittering centrepiece of our new Merthyr Tydfl facility: the Ventricle. A multi-dimensional creative break-out space in which our customers will be invited to sip good cofee, while visualising and specifying the colour and trim of their utterly bespoke new car before it’s even been built.
“Is bloody garage painted black, with Homebase carpet swatches stuck to wall,” he says.
“And Homebase leather swatches,” I point out. Dimitri leaves, shaking his head. Another sceptic bowled over by the power of the Caliburnus vision.
NEXT MONTH – DEVELOPMENT
*Apparently this is Welsh for ‘Hello’. Such a mysterious people!