New Caterham dealer in California

[randychase]

I guess this would be the proper place to introduce myself and my company. Some of you already are acquainted. My name is Randy Chase and I run The Adrenaline Gallery in San Diego. We have recently been appointed the dealer for Caterham cars and will be receiving two cars for demonstration models.

One is a CSR R400, track weapon. The other is a street car, SV 170 with weather bits. I hope to have more in the future as well as offer parts and more as we develop our website.

We are also working with two very fine service shops to provide service. One is Dietschwerks in San Jose and the other is New Tickford Service in San Diego. I trust them both as capable and having integrity.

As others in the Lotus community will tell you, I feel community is the most important part of car ownership for a sportscar (well.. other than that feeling you get coming through Big Sur at speed) and I am known for working with others to develop car control clinics/autox events, track days, and drives. I also have a reputation for crazy road trips. :)

I will be taking the Caterham to Performance Racing Industry show in Orlando Florida in December, and might also be displaying a Caterham SP/300.R. Maybe.

And we are discussing a booth for next year's LA Auto Show. I think the future is bright for Caterham and I am proud to be a part of it.

[Doug Liedblad]

Good news, and I hope you'll be successful.

Will you be stocking any parts?

How about Laguna Seca with the AROSC? In December?

[Clark]

Providing Service for California

Hi Randy,

Welcome to our community! It's good to have a California dealer again. I hope we have the opportunity to meet sometime soon. I've had my Seven now for over eleven years, and the odo shows over 75,000 miles on the chassis. A good portion of those miles were track (or drivng to and from track) miles, all driven with a big grin! It was one of the first Zetec America cars from the Caterham factory, and sports California SB-100 sticker No. 001.

During my first year of ownership when the car had slightly over 9,000 miles, I had an accident where a red-light runner tagged my car's front end. The impact bent the chassis in addition to tearing up the front-end bodywork. After discussions with Jon Nelson at (used to be RMSCI) Caterham U.S.A., James Whiting, and Bruce Robinson at Arch Motors, we agreed that a proper repair would require a long front-end section and re-skinning. I feel very fortunate that an excellent restoration shop is located across the parking lot from where I work. That shop is Dale's Restorations (http://www.dalesresto.com), located in San Bernardino. He specializes in Sunbeam Tigers, and recently finished restorations of a couple of BRE Datsun's (one was the Bob Sharp/Paul Newman national championship car) from the 70's that ran in Monterey this past August.

Getting back to my Seven, Dale took on the accident repair challenge. Arch Motors supplied the chassis section and skins, and Bruce Robinson sent a hand-drawn sketch showing how things should go together, along with critical dimensions and special brazing rods. Dale then stripped my Seven's chassis down to bare tubing and then cut the car in two just forward of the scuttle. Lacking jigs to hold things in place, he strapped the chassis pieces to a large metal plate, and did a lot of careful lining up and measuring. We confirmed a few dimensions with Arch Motors and then Dale brazed the chassis pieces together. A couple of months later, my car was finished. Dale's chassis, assembly and paintwork were flawless, as good or better than the factory's. The final validation of the repairs occured in two ways. The first took place at several tracks where my lap times were as good or better than before. For the second, Jez Coates checked my car over during the road test of a Zetec Seven at Buttonwillow with the guys from Road & Track. He'd been skeptical throughout the repair project, but gave it a two-thumbs up approval!

So, if you ever find one of your customers needing major body/chassis repairs, I'd recommend you send them to see Dale!

Best wishes,

[magnusfeuer]

As a founder of this site (with Brad Underdahl), I am very, very happy to see a dealer in SoCal again.

We've built up quite a network of local suppliers (from Cosworth, Torrance down to alternator garages), dynos, mapping competence and good mechanics. Please ping us if you need any help in getting started in any of these areas.

/Magnus F.

[randychase]

Thanks. I certainly will rely on you guys and the forum for resources.

One idea that has already been raised was to leverage my work with Jay Leno and have a Leno's Garage day for Caterhams (and other sevens) as well as a video shoot for the Leno's Garage website. I will let you know more as we develop that.

[magnusfeuer]

A Leno visit would be awesome!

I may even wash my car for that occasion.

/Magnus F.

[sdcat]

What great news! Glad to hear that you will be working with John at New Tickford. He has done a lot of good work on my R500, from replacing the clutch and getting rid of oil leaks, to solving strange electrical problems and making the car into a reliable track car.

Glad to have you in San Diego, and hoping your business grows!

Justin

[Roll a 7]

I know Randy from autocross. He had the first Elise in SD and is a deadly fast driver. Last I saw he had a Noble and either another Noble or an Ultima GTR. These are really fast cars and also have impressive build quality.

Randy: How do we contact you to get parts etc.

And, welcome to this little corner of the auto world's lunatic fringe.

With the Caterham name circulating the world on two Formula One cars next year, I have to say that your timing is excellent!!

Please keep us informed as to what Caterham is up to on their new line of sports cars.

Congratulations on being named the Caterham dealer. I think it will be a better choice than Toniq!

[Roll a 7]

PS: I will be happy to help you with testimonials, road tests, local info on registration or just about anything else you may need to help promote the brand.

The more 7s around, the better!

Brad

[mopho]

We need Caterham Swag, Hat's, T-shirts, etc..... :D

[Sean]

Hi Randy,

Please consider this post as your official invitation to attend our upcoming dyno day on 2012 August 04 (a Saturday; just over two weeks away) at Bisimoto Engineering in Ontario, CA - see this thread. As you are now the official Caterham dealer, a lot of us would like to meet you, and this seems like a good opportunity. If you can make it, we would all be very pleased to meet you there. If you cannot make it for any reason, I'm sure nobody here would hold it against you. Except if it's some mamby-pamby reason like, "I'm having my hair done that day". We would definitely torment you endlessly for some horse-shit thing like that. Hope to see you there.

[moosetestbestanden]

Hi Randy,

Please consider this post as your official invitation to attend our upcoming dyno day on 2012 August 04 (a Saturday; just over two weeks away) at Bisimoto Engineering in Ontario, CA - see this thread. As you are now the official Caterham dealer, a lot of us would like to meet you, and this seems like a good opportunity. If you can make it, we would all be very pleased to meet you there. If you cannot make it for any reason, I'm sure nobody here would hold it against you. Except if it's some mamby-pamby reason like, "I'm having my hair done that day". We would definitely torment you endlessly for some horse-shit thing like that. Hope to see you there.

Or.. "sorry, we can't make it. We're busy polishing a car" :-D