nolotusyet

Mark, you really did start something with this thread! Grant

Kimi's return means I can return to my annual bet with my Finnish boss on who will win the championship. For some reason he didn't have much faith in Heikki in the "old" Lotus.

It was the maroon one (P380 GJM). Youtube of it at Salon Prive I was delivering some flyers around the village and I heard a fruity engine noise and saw the F1 sitting behind a woman in a merc a-class who was lost. As the F1 passed by I had to give him the thumbs up and then saw it was Mr Bean! Rowan Atkinson has his country pile in the next village. Seen him once or twice in an Aston and a while back in an Audi RS6. The last time I saw an F1 on the road was when they had just been launched, one with a MCL registration on the M40, could have been no later than 1993. Our other local petrolhead claim to (tenuous) fame is that Clarkson's mum lives in another next village and is often seen in the butchers - never seen Jezza in there though The F1 is such a wonderful thing, it looks so small and delicate. IMHO this was the pinnacle of supercars; rational, subtle and intelligent as opposed to the brutish ugly arrogance of the Veyron or the Zonda's sci-fi lunacy. McLaren have not quite repeated the trick with the MP4-12C (silly name for one thing), in some ways it's more a spiritual successor to the Esprit rather than the F1 - let's see if Behar's Esprit can match it.

Agree, battery life on Desire came as a shock after a decade of Nokias. Try a Powermonkey for backup. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Power-Traveller-Monkey-Universal-Charger/dp/B000JUBTYC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1304458563&sr=8-1

Main browser is Firefox 3, but also use Safari, Chrome and Camino. All on Mac. I often have to have multiple sessions running logged in as different user names for development and testing so using multiple browsers are necessary. Chrome has improved plenty lately but I cannot get on with Firefox 4.

Can't be Marmite, nobody could possibly hate a black Esprit

I reckon that Lotus must be crazy to attempt to build their own engine. None of their competitors are truly independent and all have big parents with big engineering resources behind them - Proton do not have the depth of experience of the parents of Ferrari, Lambo, Bentley; even Aston's engines were conceived while they still had access to Henry's resources. Mark's reference to Zimmerman being the guy behind AMG & Pagani engines is relevant in the sense that AMG was bankrolled by Daimler-Benz and even Pagani did not have the audacity to attempt to build the engine for his £320,000 Zonda, or his £1m Hyundai (or whatever it's called). For me the target car for Lotus should be the Audi R8. It sits in the market in a slot that's slightly north of cooking 911s and distinctly below the cheapest Maranello iron. £90K is where the Esprit should be sitting with a V8 from (say) a Lexus. The R8 is a fine machine, it's biggest problem being that Audi badge. Everything else Audi do is wonderfully crafted stodge.There's a nice little niche for a lightweight nimble junior supercar made by a company with real pedigree unsullied by association with anything clumsy (like a 4x4 or an under steering repmobile - can't imagine understeer is a problem in a Lotus-Carlton). I reflect on the TVR experience and their misadventures in designing and building their own engines, which produced some properly interesting and idiosyncratic cars but also sowed the seeds of their downfall. Lotus please don't do it.

Someone on the forum (forgive me for not remembering who) mentioned John Z DeLorean in connection with the current Lotus situation. The more I see the more I agree with them. If this current piece of Bahar kite flying does not succeed expect to see him turn up somewhere else fronting up another (maybe sovereign wealth funded) luxo-venture. He doesn't care about Lotus, it's just a vehicle for his ego. Why would I want my taxes squandered on somebody's luxury lifestyle?

I worry about the hubris surrounding the whole Baharification of Lotus. I am unsure that the comparison with either Aston or Porsche is a relevant one. Although the Weissach lot were in dire straits at the end of the 80's they did have a scale that Lotus does not have and Aston were re-juvenated largely by money pumped into them while under the auspices of Ford. My concern as a long time fan of Lotus (though admittedly not an owner) is that a fate more like that of TVR may be ahead. You can kick holes in my argument (Russian Oligarch playboy son vs Malaysian backed ex-Ferrari boy) but the result could be horribly similar. I really hope not.

Nice one Heidfeld - 3 Lotus badged cars line astern. Why did they pick Heidfeld to replace Kubica? Surely they would have been better off trying to sign up Hulkenberg - I assume they could not for contractual reasons.

Trying to amass the funds, but it will probably have a flat six at the back. A boring car for such an unusual house, but there you go. This link has a few interesting photos, some of them of your cars. https://picasaweb.google.com/macterrier/VariousLotusPictures?feat=directlink

Mark, that Esprit was the best car ever to park on the drive of that bungalow. No better car will ever park there because we demolished it. So far your current Esprit is the best thing to park on our new drive, but I live in hope. Here's one of the current one on our new drive!

In the unlikely event that either team won a GP, what national anthem would be played? I understand that Tony F's team would play the Malaysian anthem. For 2010 the French one was played for Renault even though the car is built in Oxfordshire. Amazingly there is a little piece of Milton Keynes that is Austrian. I think Benetton (Renault's precursor team) had God Save The Queen until 1995 and the Italian anthem subsequently. So would the new Lotus Renault team get GSTQ, The Marseillaise or the Malaysian one?

I parked up in Oundle waiting for my other half while she picked up some flowers and saw this Esprit S2 parked up. Also notice the ex-works Escort RS, ex-Timo Makinen!