Hello everyone, after some deliberation I feel a need to confess my evil plans to the forum. Before you throw your hands up in horror at the sacrilige I planned can I start by saying that just like you all I love maserati‘s. I am on my 3rd now initially having had a 3200 AC as my everyday driver for 9 years ( you don’t need me to describe the mixture of pleasure and pain that entailed ) I adored that car and would probably still be enduring and enjoying it if the car had not been written off after a rear end shunt - my best friend driving the car that hit me! That was followed by a 4200 which again was my daily driver for a further 2 years before being drowned by me driving it into flood water on a pitch black rainy night on an isolated country road. Owning the 4200 had been pretty painful as it had an intermittent electrical fault where it would cut out suddenly whilst driving requiring me to get out,turn the boot master switch off then on again before being able to drive it again. Repeated trips to the excellent team at Shiltech and even 6 weeks back with Maserati at Graypaul failed to identify the problem and driving the car was a nerve wracking experience especially after it died crossing a junction one morning on the school run. My wife also hated it in part due to the unreliability but also objecting to the V8 roar which we so love and was very self conscious when driven in it which took away a lot of the fun. There was also the nagging environmental concern regarding emissions and I eased my conscience by offsetting my mileage which I know is not really a solution but made me feel a bit better.After the car was written off I began to wonder whether there may be a way to make one more reliable greener and also quieter. The possibility of converting one to electric came to mind ( no emissions, silent and fewer moving parts to go wrong ) and once I’d got the idea into my head I couldn’t get rid of it. After a couple of years of plotting saving up and investigating I found a specialist company called Falcon Electric in Derbyshire who had the expertise to carry out the conversion. (They had a contract with AC cars and carried out electric conversions of their cobras)- I visited their impressive site and saw at least a dozen beautiful cobras wrapped in bubble wrap awaiting conversion and several already partway through the conversion process.
Earlier this year I tracked down a beautiful black 4200 with only 56K on the clock and a good service history. The car drove brilliantly and I was really conflicted about whether to proceed but decided this summer to go ahead and took the plunge . The car was stripped down by Shiltech and shipped across to Falcon where the engine bay was 3D mapped to determine layout of the battery boxes and motor. The spec for the car was to be pretty impressive with amazing acceleration and at least maintaining if not exceeding usual 4200 top speed with a range of 300 miles and a rapid charging facility to ensure 75% charge after 45 minutes. Some high tech bespoke electrical equipment communicated with the various CANBUS systems of the car giving feedback that everything was working normally preventing error lights and limp mode. However a month into the conversion I received an email informing me that Falcon were ceasing to trade and inviting me to collect my car and any parts that were on site. I had already paid for all the hardware up front (a lot of money- enough to buy 3 4200’s which had taken me 3 years to save up) and had received a series of emails from Falcon confirming arrival of all of my parts. I arranged for the car to be collected and went over myself to discuss things with their director. The story was that a couple of their largest creditors had gone bankrupt which in turn made them no longer viable and the bank had pulled the plug . I was assured that all my parts would be delivered to me before the end of October when the administrator were due to take charge of their assets . - I was unable to collect them there and then as they were stored at their warehouse off site apparently due to a fire risk the stored batteries posed. Perhaps I should have been suspicious at that point but they seemed genuine and it all seemed very plausible and I had no real reason to doubt then
. As you may be starting to suspect things did not go as they had promised, no parts arrived and my calls and emails went unanswered . I was starting to get pretty anxious and hired a van and drove over to Falcon having sent an email a couple of days earlier stating I was coming to collect my parts .I arrived to find the place abandoned, all Falcon signs and logos removed , a stack of packages on their doorstep awaiting collection and no sign of my parts! I received an email later that day informing me to email them details of my car so that “a credit could be raised against it” and all subsequent attempts to progress things further have been fruitless. I sought legal advice and was advised to contact Companies House , get the details of the official receivers and pursue them directly but Companies House had no record that they had ceased trading and still lists them as an ” active” company. It has investigated and been unable to provide me any details regarding the administrators at all. I am left with a stripped out Maserati and none of the parts needed to progress the conversion which is something of a nightmare. I’m really not sure how to proceed but the legal advice that I initially received confirmed that the parts are my property and not assets of Falcon’s and should not be disposed of to settle any of their debts. Possession however is 9 tenths of the law as the saying goes and they possess the parts so Im not feeling too optimistic. I plan to seek further legal advice this week but have as Han Solo was so fond of saying “ a really bad feeling about this” I just thought I’d share the story with you and see if anyone out there had any wise words of advice - other than if it ain’t broke don’t try to fix it !
Kim
Earlier this year I tracked down a beautiful black 4200 with only 56K on the clock and a good service history. The car drove brilliantly and I was really conflicted about whether to proceed but decided this summer to go ahead and took the plunge . The car was stripped down by Shiltech and shipped across to Falcon where the engine bay was 3D mapped to determine layout of the battery boxes and motor. The spec for the car was to be pretty impressive with amazing acceleration and at least maintaining if not exceeding usual 4200 top speed with a range of 300 miles and a rapid charging facility to ensure 75% charge after 45 minutes. Some high tech bespoke electrical equipment communicated with the various CANBUS systems of the car giving feedback that everything was working normally preventing error lights and limp mode. However a month into the conversion I received an email informing me that Falcon were ceasing to trade and inviting me to collect my car and any parts that were on site. I had already paid for all the hardware up front (a lot of money- enough to buy 3 4200’s which had taken me 3 years to save up) and had received a series of emails from Falcon confirming arrival of all of my parts. I arranged for the car to be collected and went over myself to discuss things with their director. The story was that a couple of their largest creditors had gone bankrupt which in turn made them no longer viable and the bank had pulled the plug . I was assured that all my parts would be delivered to me before the end of October when the administrator were due to take charge of their assets . - I was unable to collect them there and then as they were stored at their warehouse off site apparently due to a fire risk the stored batteries posed. Perhaps I should have been suspicious at that point but they seemed genuine and it all seemed very plausible and I had no real reason to doubt then
. As you may be starting to suspect things did not go as they had promised, no parts arrived and my calls and emails went unanswered . I was starting to get pretty anxious and hired a van and drove over to Falcon having sent an email a couple of days earlier stating I was coming to collect my parts .I arrived to find the place abandoned, all Falcon signs and logos removed , a stack of packages on their doorstep awaiting collection and no sign of my parts! I received an email later that day informing me to email them details of my car so that “a credit could be raised against it” and all subsequent attempts to progress things further have been fruitless. I sought legal advice and was advised to contact Companies House , get the details of the official receivers and pursue them directly but Companies House had no record that they had ceased trading and still lists them as an ” active” company. It has investigated and been unable to provide me any details regarding the administrators at all. I am left with a stripped out Maserati and none of the parts needed to progress the conversion which is something of a nightmare. I’m really not sure how to proceed but the legal advice that I initially received confirmed that the parts are my property and not assets of Falcon’s and should not be disposed of to settle any of their debts. Possession however is 9 tenths of the law as the saying goes and they possess the parts so Im not feeling too optimistic. I plan to seek further legal advice this week but have as Han Solo was so fond of saying “ a really bad feeling about this” I just thought I’d share the story with you and see if anyone out there had any wise words of advice - other than if it ain’t broke don’t try to fix it !
Kim
