MPx

Isn't that Barry Ely's car? He's been down to Combe each year in that for the last 5 or so.

Ooooo good. Just like Lionel, albeit +Sunroof and Aircon which I didn't want, so looks like my £35k asking price is in the right ball park now.

As you no doubt aready know Keith all of those SW JLR dealers were part of Helston Garages, and Helston sold the lot (+ BMW franchises etc) to Vertu Motors at the end of last year. Odd that an enterprise as big as Vertu - already in the trade - would have gone to the expense of taking them on if it was just for a year or so and/or known to be so full of risk. Wouldn't the insiders know about this sort of thing?

I agree about darker colours better (also don't show the dirt as much!) so went with the reverse of car colours. Esprit is white with dark blue leather - cover is dark blue with white piping/lettering/lotus badge Elan is NMY with raven leather - cover is black with yellow piping/lettering/lotus badge

I'm getting a city ... maybe Canadian

What a super day ... as always ! Bit too busy this time really tho I'm sure Alan M will be happy, but the queues for the track got a bit out of hand until about 3:30 when it suddenly went dead with easy access. Also the Elan wasn't on top form despite still gaving me some great laps. Just lovely to catch up with old mates - great stuff! The Sunbeam boys (SLOC) had their AGM there at lunchtime so a good showing from them, but only the one Carlton. All the usual historics in the usual place. Track dominated by Exige/Elise as you'd expect + a few Evoras, only a couple of Esprits ventured out - plenty more parked up, but a better than usual showing of Elite/Excel/Eclat and they did give it a go. I was with the M100 clan probably less than 20 overall. Oh and I don't think any Emira went on track - shame.

Ha! Slightly different take but similar outcome. I bought a Double S rear silencer for £224.25 from Len Street in 1990. It had rusted through by 1995 and I took it back to Len Street for a replacement. They charged me another £233.77 for the privilege but said I'd get the money back from Double S in due course. In fact Len Street then dropped the ball and after many more months and several unanswered letters, it was only the threat of legal action to both Len Street and Double S that Double S intervened on my behalf and Len Street issued me with a refund cheque. That replacement is still in place today - so despite still having the invoice and guarentee card I dont think I'd be persuing them again - it really doesn't owe me does it!

I'll be there as usual...in just the Elan this year. Sadly the car isn't at its best just now so may curtail my track fun - seems to have lost top end for some reason though turbo still showing good boost - I'll have to ask around the M100 gurus for advice. Mick and Ray usually attend in their Elises so not surprised they're advertising. Hope to see some Emira's on track, but the track day thing seems to be dying a bit with newer intake so they may just be "on display".

No...not for me again, at least not until one of you says they've sorted out the catering!

Yes, some odd ommisions - ignoring our bias .. why no Ultima?

Sady haven't got a good pic of it, but distinctly remember the place looking a lot better with a buch of Lotus outside than those bloated Rollers

By time Elliot repied to my email (10am today) he said the car had already gone so it aint there any more. Shame as I could have popped in tomorrow. He also said they are due their demonstrator by the end of this month or early next ... which isn't long to wait although it won't be an R I'm guessing!

Thanks for the prompt Keith - sadly won’t be able to get there until later next week so I guess it’ll be gone by then?

Good to see you chaps...and some nice cars to gawp at. Also good to get the latest Emira/Eletra news from Lloyd. Don't think James showed up - at least I didn't see him - so I still have his lamp. But won't be doing it again. Ordered my coffee and bap at 10:26 it said on the till roll...and then stood there looking at the espresso machine for 15 mins before the coffee appeared and then another 15 mins before the bap arrived. Boring.......

This is very interesting Marc - and nothing like we found when we investigated back in about 2010. Tried three companies and even went as far as having one of those (nutter?) water deviners out who located the best spot on our land and by pure divination gave the exact depth required and what subsoils/rocks would have to be drilled through. Stunning if it was true, but we never found out. We were quoted something around £10k and we had to pay up front whether water was found or not. To be fair the prediction was a depth of over 100m and included going through the seam of green sand which is apparently hard to deal with - nevertheless given inflation since then it would be nothing like your experience. Instead we continue to be one of about 50 properties serviced by the local "manor" from their spring. The water tastes awful and they charge SWW rates for it but at least it works just like a normal supply.

Interesting to use Fezza style wheels and an S3 paint job on a refurb of an SE rather than putting it back to std. Can't see that helping the sale or price achieved.

Its one of those places where you can just be aghast at how much everything costs and make yourself miserable avoiding the obvious stings....or accept up front that's what its like - pay your way and enjoy the experiences as they're meant. Gondola rides are nice and romantic, but I preferred the Vaporetti for actually going anywhere - faster! Coffee and people watching in St Marks Square while listening to lovely music. Blinis in Harry's bar if you like that sort of thing. Walking the endless back alleys and finding the most extreme costume mask shops. The jewellery shops on the Rialto. Get on a tour to learn about the Doges and their palace - a more general architectural tour better still. And if you have an extra half day then deffo Murano - but that's not in Venice proper. Just set yourself a budget - then double it - then enjoy yourself 'til the money runs out.

Brilliant, we need a list. Who's coming? 1. Bibs - Evora 2. Mike MPx - Esprit or M100

Not wishing to p**s on your parade Dave, but a word of caution over early celebrations. We live in a similar remote location at the end of an overhead copper wire service 7 miles from the exchange (and "broadband" is only certified for up to 6 miles). As a result we get a whole 1Mb service on a good day over the copper. Just pre Covid we had a similar flurry of activity in a local village and they even dug a channel up the lane and put in "our" fibre box on the edge of our land (albeit 200m from the house) and all we had to do was wait for them to light it up and we'd get offered full FTTP! Wooppee, couldn't wait, but wait we did, and wait, and wait...and in the end despite having sunk loads of investment into laying the fibre, Gigaclear just dropped it and we are no longer scheduled for any FTTP roll out. A year or so back I finally bought into EEs 4g service and we get about 60 odd download/15 upload from that so at least we can mostly take part in modern life now - but not quite what Gigaclear had promised.

Yeah...but so is at least one of your cars. How much you saving in dinosaur juice costs???

Sorry I'm completely blinkered on this - if you're going to have a Fezza it needs to be Pininfarina not Bertone...and Red/Crema (Yellow/Nero at a push). Anything else is not the full monty....so stick to 308/328 GTB/S please!

Ha! However fast it is in a straight line, I doubt that it will be as much fun on track as your GT430 Keith.

...and I agree with you Tony. Right car for the right application. Twas ever thus: Don't buy a city car (or even an old shape Defender) if you do a lot of motorway miles; don't buy a Bentley if £/mile is a key factor for you, don't buy an SUV as a track car, etc, etc. A surprising % of the general public households have more than one car, and a surprising % do 6k miles or less a year. As a low milage second car where home charging is available, EVs can be perfect. As a 35kmiles/year repmobile even the Tesla LongRange models need a significant degree of evangelism to make sense.

It may be the science - or it may just be more internet misinformation, who knows? I have a sample of 1 that does not conform to the stats declared. 2.3% battery degredation is probably not noticeable over one year, but our car is coming up for 5 years old and in useable range terms (ie how far it will go on a full charge) it has not changed in any noticable way over that time. Still does 130 in the summer and 100 in winter. According the those stats, it should have lost more than 12% compound by now. Even this week doing short journeys in moderate temps I've done 50 miles and its telling me I've got over 70 left. Maybe the real story is that batteries need careful/considered charger management and some cars do that whereas others are just set up to maximise the headline range and charge speed and ignore the consequences?

Anyway this week I'm wondering who it is exactly in this cost of living crisis. Two things: 1 We don't do holidays, so obvs I'm out of touch, but I've been trying to book a short break for 4 of us to go away (UK based) at the end of April. Not school hols, prob still iffy weather, yada yada. First prob is nowhere has any availability so clearly a lot of other people are also doing this, second prob is room rates - finally found somewhere nice on Friday (last two rooms in the hotel) for north of £500/night FFS! ...in Wales! 2 My SiL has an old diesel Fiesta with 168k on the clock - had it 8 years, needs to replace it, wants a small automatic. So my glib prediction (elsewhere) that rule of thumb ordinary cars halve their value every 3 years - errr No - well not small autos anyway. Did the research to see which had a proper auto box and came up with half a doz for her to look at as well as Fiesta - Corsa, Venga, i10, Mini, ix20,etc. Scoured online for examples last Monday and went in on Tuesday to find half of them had been sold so there's no shortage of buyers and they are paying (for example) £10k for a 2015 (8 year old!) Corsa which was only £15k new and should be worth about £4k by now. What is going on? How can and are Joe Public being able to afford this ?