So, I wound up with another Lotus...

[JayEmm]

Well, I got a letter from the bank the other day telling me that any money I had with them would now earn interest at an astonishing 0.05%. So no good there then. Also, with winter fast approaching I just knew what the sensible thing to do would be - to buy a hardcore, rear wheel drive, open top convertible.

Long story short, I bought an Elise. Specifically, this one:

It's a 2005 111R, 70,000 miles on the clock, in generally excellent condition. Nice stack of history files, and was extremely local to me - just the other side of Woodbridge. It has been maintained by Hangar 111 recently, with Back on Track performing the maintenance for many years prior.

My criteria when I was looking were S2 or S3, although realistically an S3 was never going to happen, but I wanted the short roof and I wanted a nice colour. The OH really wanted Laser blue. I wasn't especially fussed about engines, fans of the Toyota and K-series seem equal in number. When I saw this one, and the condition of it, I knew it'd be the one. It looks stunning in Ardent Red. 

It's a non-touring car (windy windows!!), has a CD player, some carpet, Xenon Lights, a Bosch Wiper blade, Nitron Street suspension, a Larini exhaust and a 5,800rpm cam changeover.

It made its first public appearance at the Essex/Herts/Cambs meet last night, which was my first opportunity to drive it with some gusto. What a machine. It's much more intense than the Evora and ultimately not much slower. You'd need a very long straight for the Evora to make a gap. The Evora is easier to make swift progress, but the Elise is an absolute joy.

I found it was perfectly possible to crack on pretty quickly even without hitting the VVT, but when you did the changeover was immense. Much more pronounced than the VTEC in my GF's Civic - but perhaps the lower weight of the Elise contributes to that. The lack of power steering isn't a problem at all - in fact the steering feels lighter than the power assisted steering in the Evora at high speeds.

Ingress and egress is not too bad, it's fine with the roof off but there's not been much of that. I've identified a few small jobs I need/want to do and of course will be keeping a running log of that here.

Obviously the Elise is a totally different car to the Evora and given the fact the first time I've driven one was just after I bought it, I am glad to say its reputation is well earned. Another bonus is it seems to draw a lot of attention, not quite as much as the Evora, but I wasn't expecting the level of head-turning it created. I think I'm going to like this car. A lot.

[Bibs]

Nice! 

[C8RKH]

Perfick!  Best colour too. Nice one.

[JayEmm]

I thought you and @Colin G would approve of the colour!

[Neal H]

I had a similar letter from my bank. I like your approach

It does look really nice in red.

[Bibs]

Premium Bonds FTW by the way! 

[JayEmm]

Ha, I used to have those. Got about £25 a month out of them, that was with the full 30K. They got turned into some furniture and some nice AV gear years ago.

[Hangar 111]

Oh you bought it!  You should have popped in, it used to live just down the road

Dave

Edited October 14, 2016 by Hangar 111

[JayEmm]

I would if it weren't Sunday! Anyway, I'm waiting for your rolling road to open for me to pop by!

[Hangar 111]

Fair enough!  Rolling road is having the floor painted today, ahead of an EALC open day here on Sunday.

The red car is in decent condition considering it spent time as a daily.  Chap you bought it from did a good job of tidying it up during his relatively short tenure with it.

Dave

[JayEmm]

Yes, he spent a lot more time cleaning it than driving it! I think he was very worried about his aluminium and fibreglass car rusting away

You will see it again, that you can count on!

[philcool]

Nice glad your happy with it they will look after it at Hanger I've had good service from them shame they are so fare away from me  

[Hangar 111]

London?  We have a regular customer bringing his car from Spain for a service in a few weeks

Dave

[JayEmm]

1 hour ago, Buddsy said:

Well done James! I love red sports cars. Open top ones even more. I love the red Elise.

I know Im showing my ignorance but what is a short roof?

So from what I can tell, the S2 Elise has two types of roof. You've got the long roof

and the short

You can see the long has the "tails" that extend over the back, looking like the S1 Elise top. I much prefer the look of the short, plus you can remove the roof (partially) from inside the car, making ingress/egress much easier in tight spaces.

[NedaSay]

Nice piggy bank indeed.

[purso]

James you need to be at 5 lotus before christmas

[JayEmm]

I think the bodywork underneath is only different in that it has some extra holes for the tails to clip onto.

Apparently both are miles easier than the S1 roof. As far as I know the "short roof" on the S2 is pretty much identical to the roof used for the current S3.

[C8RKH]

I'm pretty certain the short roof was designed for and made its debut on the VX220 and was so successful Lotus used it on the S2...

So there you have it!

[NR2k]

Glad to see you have a proper lotus at last :-)

Enjoy.

[JayEmm]

1 hour ago, C8RKH said:

I'm pretty certain the short roof was designed for and made its debut on the VX220 and was so successful Lotus used it on the S2...

So there you have it!

Would make sense - I believe the roofs are not interchangeable but I am sure they are close enough it wouldn't have taken much to adapt. 

7 minutes ago, NR2k said:

Glad to see you have a proper lotus at last :-)

Enjoy.

S1 vs S2 twin test?

[Barrykearley]

Great purchase - far better than leaving it in the bank - they'd only loose it with brexit anyway

[Mark Blanchard]

You get my respect!  You're a proper Lotus enthusiast.

[Bibs]

4 hours ago, JayEmm said:

I think the bodywork underneath is only different in that it has some extra holes for the tails to clip onto.

1

There's a panel which is changed, it takes welding bits in to convert from a long to a short tail.

[Colin G]

Very nice! And thankfully not grey.......... 

[ramjet]

So if you now have three, why did you umm and ahh over the first one so much?