Why the Zenos E10 *isn't* an Epic Fail

“You can't overestimate the stupidity of the general public,” wrote the poet Charles Bukowski. It’s a quote that, over the years, has been sagely repeated by many people who clearly don’t think it’s referring to them. Well, Epic Fail has news. You are the public. We are the public. And we’re all stupid. All of us.

In pretty much every situation, we, the general public, can be relied on to choose the wrong option. Make daft decisions. Case in point: the Zenos E10. Arriving in 2014 from Norfolk – that famed hotbed of sports cars and also turnips – it aimed to provide a modern twist on the familiar Caterham 7 formula, which is like offering a fresh alternative to the flint axe.

There was much to admire about the E10. It weighed barely 700kg thanks to an innovative lightweight structure, with a central aluminium beam ‘straddled’ by a carbon-plastic tub. Double wishbone suspension with inboard dampers provided tidy handling. Turbocharged Ford engines generated as much as 350 horsepower, which, with no windscreen as standard, provided acceleration of up to 75 face wasps per minute.

The E10 wasn’t flawless. It looked like a melted KTM X-Bow. It didn’t have ABS, which was good for brake pedal feel but also good for crashing in the wet. That said, its total lack of a roof precluded going out in the wet in the first place.

But the problem wasn’t the E10. The problem was the general public. Specifically, the general public’s boneheaded insistence on buying the wrong sort of cars. Because you didn’t buy a nice fizzy E10, did you? No, you bought many Vauxhall Mokkas and Nissan Qashqais and Suzuki Celerios, and look where that got us. Zenos shifted barely five dozen cars in the UK before entering administration in January 2017.

You could, of course, blame Zenos for failing to grasp how tiny the ‘highly impractical weekend toy’ market really is. Epic Fail prefers to blame everyone else. Don’t be stupid, people: buy more roofless two seat sports cars.