This project is primarily a collaboration between a father and son. As you can see, we are huge fans of the Mazda MX-5 and this is why we have chosen to use an MX-5 as our test mule. We are already collaborating with some extremely talented individuals though.
Ethan Collingridge is 23 years old and a qualified mechanic:
He left Derby university in 2020 with mental health problems and this project is part of his recovery plan, to get back to full-time employment.
Ethan's hobbies include all things Japanese, cars and cooking.
Ethan's first car was bought when he was 16 as a project to hone his skills as a mechanic. It is a 1990 Eunos Roadster (imported from Japan in 2002) and is called Yoko. Yoko has done over 132,000 miles.
Ethan has fully restored Yoko inside and out and you can read all about this project here. In 2019 Yoko was driven to France for the Le Mans 24 race.
Ethan has also owned a 2016 Mazda 2 and is currently insured to drive the family CUPRA Born EV. This is our first EV and we all love it!
Rob has written a review of our CUPRA Born V2.
Rob Collingridge is 56 years old and retired. He graduated from Portsmouth University in 1989 with a degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering
He joined BT as a graduate in 1989 to work on real-time speech-interactive systems. He then worked on BT's first Internet services and many of BT's consumer services over the years. During his last 10 years in BT, Rob was an Innovation Consultant bringing new concepts to market for BT and its customers.
Rob's hobbies include skiing, smart home technology, cooking and cars.
Rob's first car was a mk 1 VW Golf 1.1, given to him by his parents in 1984 after he rolled it onto its roof! It was the car he learnt to drive in and was his transport whilst at Portsmouth Polytechnic.
Rob's first proper sports car was a 1999 Lotus Elise S1 😎 It was this car that really taught him about driver involvement, handling and track days. It didn't stop him crashing it though 🙁 This car was a joy to drive, with lovely feedback through the steering wheel and great performance. With just 120bhp though, it always felt like it could handle a bit more power.
With the arrival of our first child, the Lotus Elise was replaced by a 2000 Subaru Impreza Turbo imported from Holland. This was our first 'family' car 🤣 Whilst being quite rapid, the AWD system got in the way of real fun.
Rob regrets selling his Lotus Elise to this day and in 2007, he started building something even more extreme to replace it. His Fisher Fury R1 kit car is a slightly mad road-legal race car weighing just 450kg and with over 160bhp. Powered by a Yamaha R1 motorbike engine with a 12,000rpm red-line, it would reach 100mph in less than 10 seconds. This was a car you wore, rather than drove. Every trip in it was an event. It required 100% concentration all of the time and always had more speed available if you had the courage to ask for it. Rob sold it in 2022 to focus on electric vehicles.
Whilst Rob misses his Fisher Fury R1, he gets to borrow his daughter's 2019 Mazda MX-5 😎
