Did anyone see the documentary on the Mille Maglia that Chef James Martin was taking part in ?
I was wondering why the fact that the car would now have to compete in a future Rally and suceed, to make it profitable when sold, as Jame Martin would make a loss if sold now having not completed the Rally ?
Would that historical fact make that much differenc as he spent almost £1 million pounds to get ready for the Rally, with the car costing a large amount of that ?
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Yes I watched it last night. I think he was going to hold on to it and try again to try and make back the money. I don't think he'd paid out £1m I thought it was more like £800k. A bit of a risk though...
... did I hear right he paid about £300k for the engine rebuild alone! If so it was the engine that died.
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rtj70
Yes I think it was around the £800k mark to get all prepared including initial car costs, but just can't see how he would make his money back let alone a profit on the fact that it completed the Rally ?
Anyway he had enough toys to play with, some people !
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yes i watched it, with avid interest as i have been to the Mille Miglia museum which is near the start line at Bresche.
I have to say it was a foolish venture. Brand new hand built engine, and he thinks its good to cane it on a rally in its first 200 miles of life?
not wise - as he found out.
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Altea Ego, he was very foolish to drive it so hard. When I had a recon engine put in a Fiesta I needed an oil change soon after and was told not to rev it. It cannot have been much different for the engine except mine cost about £300k less!
Do I also remember correctly that he didn't take the spare parts for what went wrong due to cost?
In my opinion it was a waste of a lot of money. I cannot see how his car would have been worth so much more if it finished.
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I thought he was a rather unpleasant person and wasn't at all sorry to see him fail. The cars were the stars and would have much rather seen more of them and less of him.
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I thought he did look a bit silly spending hundreds of thousands on a Maserati which he drove for just one day when people who had probably only spent tens of thousands on 1950's saloon cars made it all the way round.
I've nothing against the bloke and appreciate somebody who started from nothing, suceeded in his chosen field and spent the excess ammounts of cash he accumulated on a worthy car collection, however I feel he was slightly out of his depth trying to play such a big-boys game at that level.
It's OK to spend £600k on a car when you have the odd spare million but to have to consult your accountant about borrowing the money up front and then hope to make money on the project by completing the Mille Miglia smacks of rose tinted economics.
The only way to make a small fortune at this is to start with a very large one. (Can't remember where I first heard that but it seems to fit in this case.)
The event itself was only a road-rally with regularity not high-speed special sections. He would have been better off selecting a rally co-driver rather than a glamourous and no doubt highly capable wheel twirler to accompany him. (Wouldn't have made such good TV though.)
Still, it's only entertainment and the sight of all that pedigree hardware amongst stunning scenery passed a very pleasing hour.
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I thought his behaviour was a bit pathetic as well as being insensitive and self-indulgent.
In tears at the side of the road with "it's cost me a million pounds this has" when he has a successful career, partner who is a model, a large house, a garage with an enviable collection of cars. There are many people at this time worrying about their jobs at this time, whether they can pay their bills and what the next year will bring. Yes we are all car fans but there are more accessible ways of entering motor sport than in a once a year race in an antique vehicle. His choice!
Felt really sorry for his co-driver but she must of been relieved that the breakdown did not happen with her at the wheel.
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I bet the co-driver had not driven it at all. With the expense she must have been really glad it was him that broke it.
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As the guy had a mercedes gullwing lying around I'd like to know why he didn't just take that instead? Seems rather odd to go and spend that much on a maserati when you can get a lancia aurelia for £20k that would also be eligible. Even the fifth series expensive ones are (or were) about £50k. Due to sterling collapsing they're about 90k if you are working in euros.
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I think his point was choosing a car they wanted in the race. More apply than get in. But I'm sure the Mercedes he had would have been fine. Maybe he saw this as an opportunity to make some money - and failed.
When the little car went past him - he said he had one of those too. Silly fool.
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The poor soul though... he's selling a DVD of it in the New Year mind. Have to make back that million...
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Silly fool.
This is from the horse's mouth [his autobiagraphy]:
"TV chef explains his split from Bond producer in autobiography
Why did I split with Barbara Broccoli? She tried to buy me a £180,000 Aston Martin, by TV chef James Martin
My girlfriend once bought me a Picasso. Not a Picasso print or a Picasso poster but a genuine Picasso. Actually, it wasn't just one, it was three.
Perhaps it makes more sense if I tell you that the woman in question was the Bond producer Barbara Broccoli, one of the most powerful people in Hollywood and more than ten years my senior.
And if this generosity wasn't tricky enough - for instance, what exactly does a man do with such a valuable work of art? - Barbara then insisted on buying me a state-of-the-art Aston Martin DBS, chassis number 007, costing an eye-watering £180,000. Just because I said I liked it. "
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Whats her telephone number? I need to get in there before BBD does.
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Only found this out earlier but any car that you use for the mille miglia has to have done it before to be eligible. It has to be that actual car not just another one of the same sort. Did find a lancia aurelia that was eligible for a mere ?90k. Shame sterling has tanked as otherwise it would have been £60k rather than £90k!
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I told my wife last night this trip/race is going to get more and more expensive because the cars have to be within a certain age range. But blimey having to now have raced it before. Only for the very rich. And they aren't so rich anymore ;-)
It would actually be nice to hire something like a FIAT 500/Abart 500 and do it over 7-10 days.
I am the one into cars... but my wife (a) was the one knowing it was on (thought it was going to show more of Italy, (b) still watched and enjoyed it and today (c) wondered when it was raced as she'd like to see it first hand....! But we like Italy a lot. And Greek Islands ;-)
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Hmmmm,
Does that not mean that eventually there will be no cars left to take part ?
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If they exist and run then it will be okay. But I too think this will get more and more expensive for participants. Not as much as maybe he paid though.
I might give it a miss after thinking about it.
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As the guy had a mercedes gullwing lying around I'd like to know why he didn't just take that instead?
he said "Italian race - has to be an Italian car"
Me? I would have taken the 300sl - it was good enough for stirling moss when he broke the 100mph average speed.
Edited by Altea Ego on 30/12/2008 at 15:12
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I watched this and found it very interesting.
Dad used to be a member of the Aston Martin OC and used to participate in their rallies around Europe. Much prepartaion was always needed. To expect to rebuild a car like this Maserati and do 1000 miles in 3 days with no road test shake-downs was asking for trouble, and as others have said his childish treatment of the new engine from the off didn't help!
I had no idea who he was before the programme, but the one thing I did admire ... OK, the second thing I did admire was his garage. It looked like it had glass doors so he could admire his cars every time he left his house - good idea. And it looked like the garage doubled as a smart dining room, once all the cars had been moved out. That really has got me thinking ...
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>>I had no idea who he was before the programme, but the one thing I did admire ..>>
James has been the motoring correspondent for the Mail on Sunday's Live magazine for some time now - he clearly loves cars and it comes across each week.
See:
tinyurl.com/9dvc2t
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LOl
in his question
>9. BANK BREAKERS
>I've driven some insanely pricey cars this year... but can you match the price tag to the >relevant motor?
>a) Bentley Brooklands
>b) Mercedes-McLaren SLR Roadster (pictured above)
>c) Ferrari 599
>d) Perodua Kelisa
>i) £4,999
>ii) £230,000
>iii) £355,000
>iv) £197,000
All wrong - how about
e) mille miglia Maserati for one day
v) £800,000
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Crikey, you are right Stuartli - a chef moonlighting as a motoring correspondent, will Clarkson be opening a restaurant soon ? :-)
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Hardly moonlighting...:-)
James has never made any secret of his passion for cars and I'm quite sure he doesn't do ALL the cooking in his eating out establishment(s); even more so if he was taking his attractive partner out for a romantic meal...:-))
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I didn't really catch all the make-a-profit stuff, but we felt sorry for him and felt that he had been ripped off by his engine-rebuild man. It was a broken valve, wasn't it? Wouldn't that be a crystal-clear warranty claim, even if you'd (sort of) caned it too soon?
Anyway, whoever or whatever he is (I'd never heard of him, just noticed the title of the programme) he seemed perfectly sincere and the programme was a pleasure to watch.
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I didn't really catch all the make-a-profit stuff but we felt sorry for him and
whoever or whatever he is (I'd never heard of him just noticed the titleof the programme) he seemed perfectly sincere and the programme was a pleasure to watch.
You obviously, unlike myself, have not read the comments on the Digital Spy forums concerning the programme.
Personally, whilst initially warming to the man and his exploits (Yes I did know who he was) I thought the whole hour was a completer waste of time. The MM, now of course is, by necessity, a shadow of its former self and is now a jolly for those with more money than sense (like myself, I suppose).
The programme eventually became a struggle between trying to hear any conversation with the ever intrusive operatic insertions, which put the final nail in the coffin.
I think, that finally, the programme did not show JM in very good light - rather selfish IMHO.
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I agree with you old git. I thought that the man, who I hadn't heard of before, was a rather unpleasant piece of work. I felt sorry for the pretty blonde passenger, she could do better than him IMO.
I enjoyed the scenery, when they bothered to show anything except the chef bloke. I would like to do the Mille Miglia route one day in my car. I wonder if it is allowed to do the route in a diesel?
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if it is allowed to do the route in a diesel?
yes of course it is. I did part of the route in mine. There were no other competitors (unless you count normal Italian drivers) the date was wrong and there was no crowds or stewards.
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felt sorry for him and felt that he had been ripped off by his engine-rebuild man. It was a broken valve, wasn't it?
My money is on the problem being JM's right foot, rather than the rebuild.
There was an interesting exchange between JM and the lady co-driver/navigator before they set off:
she - we're only supposed to to rev it to 2500.
JM - no 3500!
I don't know the noise a Maserati of that vintage should make, and I don't know if the sound track when JM overtook those cars was dubbed on in post production, but it sounded a bit enthusiastic.
Considering the car and engine was freshly rebuilt, and didn't appear to have been used at all prior to the MM - no testing/shake down on a track, or even the road, to find out if it had been put together properly (anyone else notice the comment about the water leak?) - the whole process seemed fraught, and doomed to failure.
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To be quite honest, I got bored at the point where James broke down and switched my computer to full surfing, rather than TV, mode.
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It was a broken valve wasn't it? Wouldn't that be a crystal-clear warranty claim even if you'd (sort of) caned it too soon?
Wow, do Maserati offer a 60 year warranty on their cars??
Bear in mind that F1 racing engines put together with millions of pounds worth of testing and all new parts sometimes go bang within the first hour....
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"Wow, do Maserati offer a 60 year warranty on their cars??"
No not a Maserati claim but he did pay £300k for an engine rebuild. But his could not be built to the same precision as an F1 engine.
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