Hi Chris,
Lovely cars you have there. But even more importantly, I see in your past history that you had a Venturi Atlantique. Was it, by chance, the one I have now?! Mine is the dark blue twin turbo from 1998. Or was yours one of the single turbo versions?
I'm trying to amass the history of Venturi in the U.K., so any info on your car would be gratefully received.
Ewan.
Venturi Atlantique R300VEN
Dear Ewan,
In the nineties, I used to get my daily Renault GTA Turbo serviced at a place called Eurotec near Durdle Door in deepest Dorset. It was run by a bloke called Alan Matthews. I think he also did some work for my brother on his R5T2. On one such visit, he had what I believe to be the only black RHD 400GT in and I was smitten - but put off by the £100k asking price and the carbon brakes (first on a production car I believe). Not long after, I spotted the Atlantique with Nick Mee amongst all the Astons at his Brackenbury Road workshop in West London. It had first been registered as VGN 1 and was used for some of his publicity material. It had another R plate which I can't recall, but I changed it to R300VEN. I think it was two years old, so probably about the year 2000. The specification was a Rolls Royce colour called Oyster Grey (which had a copper tinge in the metallic paint). My girlfriend now wife always refers to it as the brown car. It had a “mushroom†leather interior with carbon trim. I remember the cabin as a really nice place to be and the seats as superb.
I used it as my daily - lucky to have a parking space in Marylebone and a garage for my Elan - commuting to Shepherd's Bush and then at weekends leaving very early in the morning to get to West Wales for breakfast. It was amazingly quick with no traffic about and Zoe asleep, once averaging over three figures over the 250 mile journey.
That was about as good as it got though because it developed this intermittent habit of only revving to about 2750rpm and cutting out - like a limp mode. It usually happened when hot. Nick Mee's chaps couldn't sort it out and they sent it to Oselli in Oxfordshire. It always came back worse from them.
After leaving London to live in Wales, it lead a more sheltered life, but the electrical gremlins remained. Other issues were shockers which were easily replaced and the gear cable which was a rubbish design which got clogged up easily. I think Speedy Cables made me a slightly better version. The gear change itself was pretty good I recall, helped by the perfect (for me) driving position. A local auto-electrician just about took the whole wiring loom apart in my garage and it sat for two years while he narrowed it down to the alarm and immobiliser system. Apparently in a very French way, the cars were built then sent to Paris to have the system fitted by a devious contortionist/alarm fitter. The West Walian autoelectrician who was actually of Italian descent and lectured in thermal dynamics at Swansea Uni in his spare time, decided that the French alarm guy was a genius, as he had hidden stuff all over the place. I had other names in mind for him.
Anyway, in 2007 children started appearing alongside a Ferrari 456 itch to scratch. This meant either the Elan or the Venturi had to go. The Elan won. I had one last blast around the Preselis and Martin Gutowski took R300VEN off to his Renault/Delorean emporium somewhere on the south coast.
The 456 was a worthy replacement and both our kids came home from hospital in it. We had a great trip to Tuscany over the Alps.
As far as I know, Martin kept the Venturi for a couple of years before selling it to someone in France where I believe it still resides.
As with most quirky cars, the people you meet are often the highlights. Despite all the electrical aggro, I used to enjoy sitting in Nick Mee's Office while his chaps scratched their heads. If you are able to speak with him for your history, it could be interesting. I still have his his mobile number - he rang me by mistake a few years back and we had a good chinwag.
Time might be playing tricks on my memory, but as far as I recall, Nick spent £250k marketing the Atlantique in the UK with a great write up in CAR magazine (vs 911 I think) and an appearance at whatever was the UK's biggest motorshow. Despite his best efforts, sales were tiny and he quite rightly chose to concentrate on his Astons. I think he had been Victor Gauntlett's sales manager.
Another helpful chap was Phillippe Bachelet who lived in Edinburgh and had an earlier very yellow MVS Venturi 260 I think. He was a link between the elusive factory and the few UK owners I seem to recall.
We became friends with Martin Guard from Bewdley in Worcestershire, who like me had an Atlantique and a GTA. His is silver and I believe it lives with his gorgeous A110 which he calls “lil' bastard†I think. Martin had the very good sense to track down the ex Venturi mechanics who went on to set up Extreme Limite. He used to get his car serviced by them in France. I think his car looked gorgeous in silver and rejoiced in the registration E113VA.
That's about all I can remember tonight. Apologies to all the SM members who might not be French car fans.
I enclosed a couple of snaps.
Chris