Monday, 11 March 2013

A Swiss Adventure

Back from Geneva! What a crazy, crazy week, I am out of other words to describe quite how manic this year's Geneva Motorshow was.

Knowing full well that the new Ferrari hypercar would be shown, the McLaren P1 in production form would be on display, alongside the usual splattering of cars on the stands of Pagani, Koenigsegg, Bugatti etc, it was a show that couldn't fail to disappoint.

And my word it did not!


Quite simply, after last year's "viral video" with the Eric Clapton Ferrari, the statistics don't lie and it has been the next most successful week from a video perspective for Shmee150, totalling as much as ONE MILLION video views in just the 5 days from 5th-9th March.

Fan favourites were the LaFerrari, followed by the P1 and in third place the Agera S Hundra ahead of the mental Lamborghini Veneno that appeared out of nowhere.


The week was a challenge to upload around 30 videos of the newest cars as well as managing the Shmee150 Facebook page etc but it all came together and fan bases grew significantly - welcome to all you new folks!

It was a great trip and equally important some key contacts were made for upcoming content! Half of going to a show like Geneva is to meet people and discuss things you can do together, so this year continues to get even more exciting!

March in general is the last bit of settling before the supercar season kicks off for real. However not for Shmee150, with one fairly sporadic upcoming trip that you'll definitely want to know about, an opportunity to join the 200mph club upcoming, as well as 5 events in the next 3 weeks alone, it's a busy one!

Stay tuned, lots of exciting happenings here at Shmee-towers.

Cheers,

Tim / Shmee


Thursday, 28 February 2013

Paris Trip and the Geneva Motorshow

Firstly, let me recap on the last weekend.

Our trip to Paris was incredibly enjoyable, being the UK holidays we were slightly worried that the journeys may cause some trouble but getting to Paris in one of my fastest trips to date meant things were right on plan.

It was the first true test driving with my QuickSilver exhaust system and also on my new Michelin Pilot Super Sport tyres; both of which I am pleased to report exceeded expectations. The exhaust did not have a drone at cruising speeds, and the tyres made for a comfortable ride but when driving some more entertaining roads also offer amazing handling.

Here's the video of the drive to Paris:


On the Saturday we were taking part in a supercar tunnel run through the city, something that rarely happens in London during the winter, and had it been snowing as in Paris it most definitely would have been cancelled! However that only worked out the best for us and I am pleased to say MsShmee also thoroughly enjoyed the day!


So what's next for Shmee150; well this week is the true kick-start to the 2013 events calendar with the Geneva Motorshow!


As usual, I am heading to Switzerland for the press days on Tuesday 5th and Wednesday 6th March; where we are expecting some huge highlights in the form of the new Ferrari Enzo successor, the production McLaren P1 and Porsche 918, a front-engined GT concept from Lamborghini alongside their Aventador 50th Anniversary, and all sorts of concepts and tuner cars at the show.

The difference this year is that I am travelling out a day before - partly to be ready when the show doors open, but you never know I may scoop something exciting beforehand. Last year a Reventon Roadster and a Countach 25th Anniversary were spotted at nearby hotels in the build up to the show.

Geneva will involve an awful lot of content, so my apologies in advance for quite how many videos I will be posting, however hopefully there will be something for everyone before being back in the UK and already with something rather nice lined up to be posted afterwards.

In the mean time though, the car I'm most looking forward to at this year's show is to see this for real:



Cheers,

Tim / Shmee


Tuesday, 19 February 2013

This Weekend in Paris

Hi all, for the first of my updates in the new look Shmee150 Blog, let me tell you about this weekend's trip to Paris!


MsShmee is going to join me for the first trip in my R8 Spyder into the continent, we will be visiting Paris from Friday afternoon until Sunday afternoon.

The first problem without a doubt is the lack of storage space in the R8, the bonnet is unbelievably tiny! This is about the limit of how much stuff can fit in the car plus a coat or two:


Small holdall for me, laptop bag and a bag with camera gear (I couldn't go anywhere without it!), and a big holdall and washbag for MsShmee, it's fine for a weekend in Paris but with two trip this year over 2 weeks long in Europe it's going to get interesting!

I've just put my brand new Michelin Pilot Super Sport tyres on the car, the web reviews are highly favourable in comparison with the Pirelli P Zero tyres that come stock on the car; they should be a little bit quieter while also offering more grip.


It's a slight relief having good tread because the Pirellis were on their last legs before I killed them as best I know how! I hadn't felt entirely safe about the journey across France with such low tread and very cold temperatures forecast.


If you haven't yet seen quite how that happened, check out the video:


The plan is to arrive in town around the Champs-Elysees area at about 4pm French time on Friday, who's going to be around? I imagine a few of the Paris car spotters will be in town, just got to hope for some good weather!

I expect I'll be producing a mini Vlog episode or two of the drive, to partly document what a weekend trip in an R8 Spyder is like, and partly practice before the big ones this year! In April I've got a mega tour, and hopefully in May will in some form be involved in this year's Gumball 3000 rally - time will tell!

Cheers,

Tim / Shmee


Monday, 18 February 2013

Changes to Shmee150 and The Supercar Kids

Hi,

As you almost certainly know by now I am involved in the new, free-to-view, online supercar magazine, The Supercar Kids.

TSK has grown incredibly quickly, already reaching 20,000 fans on Facebook in under 6 months and as a result the time has come to start to merge together the content from the existing Shmee blog you are reading and that belonging to TSK: http://blog.thesupercarkids.com

For those who follow on Facebook/Twitter, links will continue to be posted on Shmee150 fan pages exactly as they currently do, as well as additionally on the social media pages for The Supercar Kids making it even easier to find all of the latest content.

With a strong team ready and raring to go, the TSK blog is sure to become the perfect destination for the interesting supercar news you want to see. Existing Shmee150 writers; Josh, Luke, Tom and Andrew will start to work on TSK, alongside Mahmood, Adam and myself so you'll be sure to find the latest updates always there.

This website will become more of a personal update from myself, every now and then I will use it to let you know of the existing things in the works and what I have planned. perhaps to bring back some of my favourite videos of the past and so on - perhaps if there are things you'd like to see by all means let me know, it can be used as a place to answer questions.

Thanks again for all of your support to date, the future for both TSK and Shmee150 are very exciting, and I'm glad you're here to join in.

All the best,

Tim / Shmee

Sunday, 17 February 2013

Another Crazy Russian Dash Cam!

I'm not really sure what happened here. All you see is a Volkswagen Passat CC goes flying across three lanes of traffic at high speed and into the central barriers.