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Tony Fernandes checking out?


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I have spent my entire adult life (30 something years) in the automobile business, and try to be a student of its history. Automobile manufacturing is a brutally complicated and competitive business whose history is littered with the corpses of people who thought they could build and sell cars. The Caterham is an iconoclastic delight, IMO, and Ansar Ali proved it could be a profitable enterprise (AFAIK); I hope some entity that cares about what it represents winds up with it.

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  • 5 weeks later...

Tweets coming from Tony F seem to indicate he is either selling or folding his F1 involvement. No word on Cars other than he really likes Caterham Cars.

 

“ @tonyfernandes F1 hasn’t worked but love Caterham Cars.”

 

Then Tony deleted his twitter account.

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Nothing confirmed, but a bit more info here: http://adamcooperf1.com/

 

It’s believed that the new deal involves only the F1 team, and not the GP2 outfit. The identity of the purchaser is not yet known, but it is not connected to either of the new F1 projects from the USA and Romania.

 

I can only presume if it doesn't affect the GP2 team it doesn't affect CC either.

 

Also from @willbuxton:

 

Crumbs. Rumour mill in full flow over Caterham today. Usually impeccable source reckons it's about to be bought by a very familiar name.

and

All I'll say is that, if true, I don't imagine they'll be getting their hands on Mercedes engines anytime soon.
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I was also wondering if Honda would pick it up to become a factory (or feeder) team. The thing is, though, I believe it's been stated that Honda's agreement with McLaren has McLaren as an exclusive customer for 2015. If true, that would seem to indicate that there wouldn't be a second team racing Honda machinery.

 

Of course, then your thought turns to, how valuable might it be to have a modern F1 team at your disposal that is not enrolled in the World Championship in your first year and is thus not subject to the various testing restrictions...

 

So it's certainly possible.

 

Having said that, someone mentioned Colin Kolles who has now basically flunked out of sportscars and may want to scab his way back into F1. And he evidently had a big falling out with Mercedes.

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The big question is what this does to the rest of the TF holdings that were all a part of this. The whole point of owning Caterham Cars was to be able to leverage the branding of the F1 team. Take away the F1 team... does he still keep Caterham Cars?

Edited by randychase
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And now Mike Gascoyne can say he ran two F1 teams into the ground. Toyota and now

 

Caterham. He needs to find another line of work, designing F1 cars is not what he's

 

good at....... No points in 4 years is a giant waste of money with no FIA points money.

 

But it's not the first and won't be the last.....

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According to journalist (and Caterham Board member) Joe Saward, Tony F is not selling off Caterham Cars. But a consortium of Swiss-Middle eastern business interests are buying the F1 team with details to come on Wednesday.

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I wonder if the Lotus - Lotus F1 name split will happen to Caterham. Now that would be funny.

 

A bit ironic. Rumor is the team will still be called Caterham. So yes, a team named Lotus and a team named Caterham....neither of which have any connection to their car companies.

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Man, that is ugly.

Yeah, it looks better in person really. But the response was pretty much against it. And really, it was not a proper attempt as it was a CSR Seven with a body kit. A really nice kit. But you can see the car underneath.

 

 

It is unfortunate that pic is used with the story because they are not connected. The Aero Seven was shelved and that is NOT the car they are working on.

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