Hello Everyone!

[Nick@Hillbankusa]

Hello CA Caterham Club,

My name is Nick and I am from Hillbank USA, direct dealer for Superformance, which you may or may not have heard, took over US distribution for Caterham. I am very excited to be a part of the Caterham program and hope to get the ball rolling quickly after we sort the initial kinks out.

I know over the past few years Caterham factory support has not been to par. Seeing that I am based in CA, I am making myself available to help to the best of my abilities and answer any questions you may have about the new model lineup, parts inquiries, etc.

The Seven we will be bringing in will come in 5 different variations: Seven 160, Seven 280, Seven 360, Seven 480, and Seven 620R. All available with tons of options and packages to build to your exact specification.

I am looking forward to getting to know you and also hoping to get input from existing owners on parts I should keep on hand in my inventory, as I know some parts need replacement more frequently than others.

Currently I am working on a website solely focused toward Caterham parts. Later this year once we get some more Caterham cars & parts in stock and the weather warms up, I am looking into planning an open house at our facility to get current owners together, potential owners interacted, and show you what we are all about.

In the mean time, I will float around the forums to get myself more acquainted, should anyone have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me! Any locals are more then welcome to stop by the showroom, Id love to show you around.

[magnusfeuer]

Welcome to the Lunatic Fringe of Car Ownership - and in your case Car Salesmanship.

As you pointed out, we've been starved for Caterham's support and attention in the US in general, and in California in particular.

I am personally very happy to see a new distributor, in Irvine no less. Your proximity to my home, which means that I can now swing by you and pick up whatever I want, will be a disaster for my wallet that I am very much looking forward to.

As some kind of club chairman, I would be very happy to arrange mutual track events, car shows, open houses, etc.


Sincerely,

/Magnus F.

[moosetestbestanden]

As you pointed out, we've been starved for Caterham's support and attention in the US in general, and in California in particular.

Hungry maybe, starved not. I think we've done rather well for ourselves. Strangely, it's not for want of support per se, but rather availability of (some) parts. And not necessarily always direct Caterham parts. Sometimes it the little shit - M10x1.0 brake hardware, junk like that - that is the pain in the ass to find.

That said, as I've been prowling the caterhamparts.co.uk website I frequently find 'Not Available' or 'Out of Stock' on parts that are kind of fundamental if a failure occurs or <shudder> accident damage. This is really annoying and while their groovy new website looks good graphically it doesn't look good when you need that wishbone (or whatever) that's unavailable, and has been for a year. And some of these things have been unavailable for, like (California English), a year or more. So I'm curious to know if there's any light the new importers or dealers can shed on the topic of parts availability and Caterham's strategy regarding same.

That's where we've been wandering in the wilderness, and where some more support would be welcome. Selling cars is great. Keeping them running w/ proper parts even better.

Oh, I almost forgot. Welcome to the neighborhood Nick. You'll find that it's a small cul-de-sac, at present. But all the neighbors are really friendly and help each other out all the time. Bragging, I'd say that as far as technical information and build knowledge is concerned we have as high a level of core competence as anywhere, Stateside at least. Several of us are amongst the earliest adopters of Duratec powered cars, not just on this side of the pond but Over There as well, and there is a high proportion of high HP (4 cylinder, normally aspirated, Ford engined, as God intended) cars around, which is way cool.

So, cheers. Looking forward to meeting you. At the track, where we belong :-)