CaptainBigleux

Maybe not a news for you guys, but I just discovered and very surprised that some Cobra were made with the Esprit V8 engine ! I know it was the plan of Lotus to sell the engine to other brands, but with AC probably not the volume they were expecting lol

One of my biggest automotive disappointment. I was fan for years, represented the best affordable sport roadster when I was teenager (after the elise of course)... then I tried the stunning example of a good friend, both on B road and track day. First impression is really good : love the look, doesn't get old, love the interior, driving position is almost perfect, gear shifting is nice (very short to handle).Handling is very good for a stock car, very natural, quite sharp front end, back end you can play with, engine very communicative... BUT, there is a but : after the first excitment you start to think some bhp are missing. You really need to push it to the limit to feel something, hard to manage long drift because you need to keep the rev over the vtec change. This engine is fun for a while but quickly you feel something is wrong. A barely stock lotus elise mk1 is faster on the straight line ! Don't get me wrong, it's a good car, very good car even. As I said very nice design, good balance, quite reliable apparently (if you avoid first years I heard something wrong with lubrification)... just not exactly what I was expecting. I imagined a beast, something wild, and it's just a very good car feeling underpowered. Probably with some good tuning can be very good... but the prices of used cars stays so high in France that I never considered this model. Probably with UK prices the story could have been different.

after the italian style (Ferrari logo), the german look :

Just added some photos ! Hope they will get some vote

ok thanks. But cant' choose which one lol. Help me !

trackday last week end : The video that goes with them : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rud-9OSrKSM

How does it work this Potm?

fun trackday yesterday. Clastres is a very small track north of France, you barely use 3rd gear... and my rear tires were completely dry (11 years old...) so let's finish them having fun :

What do they do exactly ? I'll wait 60.000km if it happens again anyway.

no, it's a low mileage only because the car was not running a lot for many years... the counter is working fine now, I just "lost" a couple of hundred. But the other way like you have it's crazy !

unfortunately we can't choose at all in France... I have to get my new plates asap, but I won't be able to get something for the Esprit. Even If I am lucky there is nothing crazy fun for a lotus, as the french numbers system is AA-001-AA => AA-999-AA => AA-001-AB

Sport 300 raaah lovely

weird... especially when the "Drive network" (especially Chris Harris videos) is getting very inlfuent, Top Gear should wake up in order not to loose his suppremacy. Honestly since last season, and the new one, funny challenges are still good but represent too much weight... If you had crazy/funny/stupid/... challenges, longer and longer news, very very long and borin "star in reseaonnable price car"... the actual space for real test drive is smaller and smaller, and quality of it is decreasing too. Seriously Chris Harris has definitely my vote nowadays, the best balance between nice pictures, real opinion on qualities or not.... and fun.

I can't remember if they tested the Exige V6 in the previous season ?

hi, digging in old topics, someone knows how to get it nowadays ?

[Link Removed] Please don't post links to illegal material. There are no official PDF versions of the workshop manual. Mod

Hello, First things first : I own a 1996 V8, so it's an issue with the old dashboard, not the VDO one. Last weekend my total kilometers counter was going to reach 50.000. So to jump from 49.999 to 50.000 it had to change 5 digits blocks... and when it happend the counter stopped, like if it was too much effort to move the 5 digits all in once ! And the trip counter stopped at the same time. Drove it probably 100km more, stopped and started the cars few times... but nothing moved. Finally Monday morning driving to the office I decided to gently knock with my fingers on the speedo, and after 20-30 sec of knocking it started to move again !no issue since then. But I'm a bit worried it could happen again (may at 60.000 lol), so does anyone got the same issue, and something I should look after ?

it looks like fiat coupe headlights indeed. But what an horrible monster garage result... he should go to jail. It reminds me the "Will I Am" car project (a delorean tuned, or should I say killed, by west coast customs) Couple of video of famous french tv show about cars (but far far away from british programs quality and passion), back in the days when they were actually launched on the market : - S4S : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptqibJ2Eb8s - early V8 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qw_1yNp9zqw you probably don't speak french, so bottom line for both of them they say : "not the best cars, but very special and different", and specifically about the V8 : "finally got the engine it deserves, especially for the price tag, but fondamentaly not so different". Most funny is the guy from Lotus speaking with approximate french, explaining the car is like wine and will be improved : new style (ok kinda with new rear spoiler, wheels, and final tail lights...), new interior (OK), global improvment (OK with the S350..), and maybe a new gearbox (so "maybe" for british means "never" lol) An interesting documentary about Lotus cars history, with a focus on the esprit starting just before 34minutes, including nice driving of a V8 on Hethel test track. And if everything happens like it should, I plan a Weekend at the nurburgring end of April, so maybe a proper video of a lap around the nordschleife with my V8.

Nice collection Tocus !!! Some fresh photos of fun with the V8 during this weekend, just after full deep service (time belt, all fluids and filters, plugs, leads...) I know the car is dirty, but weather was bad last days and I was driving it every day. And it's clean under the dirt lol. First in Paris, unexpected meet with a very unusual car in France (even more than the Esprit) : And Sunday unformal weekly meeting of lotuses and Caterham in a small village :