Britain's Forgotten Sportscar: The FBS Census
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ม.ค. 2022
- Spurred on by the success of similar small-volume manufacturers such as Jensen, Noble, and TVR, FBS tried ever so hard to carve out its own path under its two visionary leaders, Andrew Barber and Robin Hall. But for whatever reason, it just didn't work out.
This video dives into the previously-uncharted history of the Census, its design and development, brief sales performance, and the company's downward spiral preceding its eventual capitulation in September 2003.
The second half of the video is a commentary/analysis of an official CD-ROM distributed by the company, which features the car's respective segments as shown on ITV's Pulling Power and the 8th November, 2001 installment of Top Gear. If you would like to explore the files at your own leisure, then these will be made available, firstly as Patron bonuses before eventually making its way to the channel and to Archive.org for further preservation purposes.
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Special thanks to @RacingFreak for The Getaway footage!
Lotus factory footage from Alan Perry. - ยานยนต์และพาหนะ
I own FBS Census car number 5 one of the red cars, it was the last car made, the only one with a hard top, when I moved to Australia in 2015 I enjoyed my car so much I shipped it over, I enjoyed your video, the 2 guys who designed the car are engineering wizards, the record speaks for themselves on the previous vehicles they both worked on, in my opinion I love the front & back of the car, but I am not keen on the sharp lines on the side of the car. it has a small boot in the back but not many people realise the rear lifts up behind the driver & passenger where there is storage space, the car handles superb it is like driving on rails.i have driven many sport cars nothing can handle like the FBS Census.
you should post some videos of it.
I happen to like this car quite a lot. I wish somebody would start making them again.
Well done for making a great video. I was the co-founder of FBS with Andrew Barber. Andrew and I still own examples of the cars. They have proved to be robust and still handle and perform superbly. Yes the styling was not well received and that led to poor sales and eventual failure. There was no money for a Mk2 and we went off to do other things. You mentioned Edge Sports Cars (moderately successful) and my return to JLR but you may be interested to hear I am chief engineer of the Wells Vertige. Styled initially by Robin Wells, I have done a much better job of translating this concept in to a pretty looking car. And guess what? Sales are booming!!
Hello Robin - What a fantastic reply and thank you for your information! I am very interested in the Vertige, for all the reasons stated in your online advertising, with the added benefit of being very beautiful. I like how the rear 3/4 view appears similar to the Matra / Rene Bonnett Djet! I hope (greatly) that you and RW succeed, because the Vertige will be my next auto purchase if available in 2024.
Excellent video Gearknob!
good research AND unearthing lost information on this pokey TH-cam channel, i hope you can get a following very quickly
Glad to see you got a subscriber bump from the "How 3 Idiots..." videos. You make good content.
Andrew is my uncle. I actually got to visit their shop in early 2000. I remember seeing a car being in a paint prep state when I saw it. I remember seeing how they used MG doors. There was also a chassis with no body. I liked the the front end, but it was the sides I didn't like more so than the rear.
I find the fact that your videos are so good made, mind blowing
I love these stories of small manufacturers. Especially in Britain, the land of automotive horror novels.
I often somewhat like the cars as much but here it's only about the story 😅
I really appreciate the british car history type videos. Loads of content around tvr, reliant, mg, ect no doubt
What an interesting story about a car that I've never even heard of! The styling does look questionable. While the front doesn't bother me that much, the rest is terrible. I would've preferred smoother lines/shapes on those parts and the front having a sharper "jaw". On the contrary, I appreciate the car's good handling as noted by reviewers.
Great research. Thanks!
The Elan felt like it had so much potential. It's one of my favorite looking Lotus.
They should have named it the Shart! And put a dark brown 10cm wide stripe the length of it.
Good video, 👍
Is it me or not
That mouth grill remind me of Fisker Karma grill a car from early 2010s
♥️ awesome
That was fantastic I vaguely remember this car seeing a blurb in a magazine. In my opinion it wasn't a very attractive vehicle.
From the front it looks like the unholy lovechild of a Karma Fisker and a late 90's Alfa Romeo GTV. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder of course, but holy shit, this is one ugly car.
From this video, my guess is that the styling turned the customers away for a start. I can't believe this won a design contest, the mind boggles how this was the best option out of 11 and how this guy went on to design for Ferrari.
Engineers usually aren't great at sales and marketing, and judging by the fact they chose the design as a winner, don't have a feel for aesthetics. A car is not just the driving experience, you need a lot more and they didn't manage to put together a team that could fill these gaps.
The unexciting name is a good example, aside from the design.
Not trying to rip into them or hate on them, just my take on why it failed.
Yeah I thought Alfa at first glance, although it reminded me of the 2006 Alfa Romeo Spyder, and a little bit of Dodge Viper at the front too. The sides and rear are just repulsive though. Definitely an image thing that caused it to not sell. You can accept a bad design from a well known performance house if it drives well, but an ugly car that drives well from a unknown manufacturer is a harder sell. You need either design or pedigree, in addition to it driving well, or it's hard to drum up new sales in a niche market.
That yellow one that sold on ebay looks like it never made it to the road again, very sad, I wonder where it ended up
Also at 15:14 just checked the plate.
The MOT Expired on 31 August 2007. Registered 23 August 2002. Passed its only ever MOT on 1 September 2006 before dissapearing.
Currentky its up for sale
I think it teaches a lesson about cars being either the vision of one person, or a team effort. While I appreciate their humility in recognising that as engineers they may be poor designers, I think farming it out to a university, even one specialised in design, was what killed it. Taking the winning design and using it as is, was a mistake. It needed a more collaborative effort, smoothing the lines in places and not having the scallops. It might just be a scale or translation issue from page to prototype, but it is horrendously ugly to my eye, with more things I don't like than those I do. I like the old MX-5, which is a bubbly sort of thing, but looks much more proportional. This is almost like a Viper or American small sports car, kinda odd coming from an Italian designer. I'm glad he went on to great things interning with Pinafarina, but they'd have slapped this down, or at least modified it extensively.
I'm kinda surprised that in the current age where engine and transmission have been supplanted by simple electronic drivetrains and high torque motors, that no-one else has made a success of the small 2 seater sports car, the way that Tesla started out, retrofitting Lotuses.
Be nice if you'd mentioned Ginetta whom are still going
Weird to test drive a convertible in the rain with the top down.
Watching this is really weird for me. I know Andrew Barber really well. I grew up with his son. He is an old family friend. I believe he still owns the last of the 3 cars presented on the disk at least he did the last time I saw his garage door open 🤣. Whether it is Dunsfold in the video or not I'm not sure but I do know the car did go round Dunsfold at one point.
Sounds like it went the way of the "Dale"
Wow. That thing is just shocking looking.
I just wonder how in the world did that design win and what criteria they had just to have that as the result
@@renz1013 I'm thinking a few pints were consumed evaluating the candidates. Beer can lead to bad things.
Absolutely GREAT VIDEO - again great job! The census was an ugly ass car - why would they use such a horrible body design after spending so many years developing a very brilliant chassis setup
If we are honest, outside of a few brands most British cars are awful looking. So it seems to be SOP for them. I mean the Americans didn't do any better during the same time period.
@@bmstylee no shit. We didn’t do ANYTHING for a real sports car except the corvette and we JUST now got that half way right - I’m just being honest - I think we made some brilliant muscle and luxery cars - poor boy luxury cars - but sports cars, not even close.
It’s just a known fact that British pioneered the sports car industry and well respected for it and that’s why British cars have always been so popular here
@@WoodsPrecisionArms the Corvette is OK but I'm not digging the c8. Just not a fan. I'm sure it's great but I like the front engine design. The muscle car and pickups are what we do well. The Cadillac and Lincoln have evolved into decent luxury rides. I hope with the newer Mustang and Camaro our performance with sports cars improves.
@@bmstylee Camaro they are on the right track with all the way around fully independent suspension. I wish they would change mustang to that - I like the c8 mid engine because they kept upping and upping the horse power - handling is a huge deal and mid engine can help with that - I do understand it’s completely untraditional, maybe Chevy should have kept the Bette front mid engine and developed another sports car all together.
@@bmstylee That's totally, completely untrue. Most British brands still in existence are luxury brands, and therefore make good-looking cars.
The front lights are straight from an Alfa gtv
20:10
FBS unknown model according to mot checks
Registered 1 July 2001. 0 MOT’s as “first MOT Date unknown”
FBS Census V6? About as haphazard a name as the styling.
If Aspergers designed a car.
They definitely got the design horribly wrong. I'd like to get ahold of one a chassis. But I don't want the body
Yeah, the chassis is pretty much on par still with a lot of track car niche manufacturers, but that body is awful everywhere! There's not a single angle I like it from, I suspect they were just like well we're the experts at engineering and they're the experts at design, so it must be right. Which it definitely isn't lol.
lolz who else came here looking for the 3 Boys only to find some other person talking
It's as if they wanted to fail. With styling even worse than the Reliant SS1 how did this abomination get off the drawing board?
It's horribly ugly, there's just too much going on.
An example of ambitious, but rubbish!
There are quite a few people who like this car and find your negative opinion of it rather pedantic and sophomoric.
Britain's Car Manufacture DEAD - it's TATA AND BMW i neber will come close to Indian Jaguar or Defender