tut wrote:Got my driving licence back after 6 years without (medical), just coming up to 60, so thought that I would buy a sensible OAP car.
150,000 miles later and never regretted it.
tut
Love it...
Do you own your Lotus because...
Love it...
Calypso Red S1 111s
Always wanted one, but never thought it was possible/ I could afford one.
Then i started working for Stephen who incidently picked me up in his S1 on my first day for a trip to a client's site at the other end of the Loch Lomond MOD road
Then i realised it wasnt that expensive to own one and then got introduced to you guys and pistonheads
I was saving hard for my wedding before it got cancelled and then that freed up some money to buy an elise and a new house with a garage.
Then split up with GF and had to sell/ buy my own house.
Swore to myself that i would not get rid of the elise.
Has given me nothing but hassle since i bought it last year, but ive loved every minute of ownership.
highlights?
Has to be the TT07 - thats what elise ownership is all about - the trackday, the people, the 'long way round' roadtrip - superb!
The next is the Walshy day drive down south with craig, dezzy and scotty.
Even though my car limped through the whole 2/3 days eventually getting flat bed support, it was fantastic.
Then i started working for Stephen who incidently picked me up in his S1 on my first day for a trip to a client's site at the other end of the Loch Lomond MOD road
Then i realised it wasnt that expensive to own one and then got introduced to you guys and pistonheads
I was saving hard for my wedding before it got cancelled and then that freed up some money to buy an elise and a new house with a garage.
Then split up with GF and had to sell/ buy my own house.
Swore to myself that i would not get rid of the elise.
Has given me nothing but hassle since i bought it last year, but ive loved every minute of ownership.
highlights?
Has to be the TT07 - thats what elise ownership is all about - the trackday, the people, the 'long way round' roadtrip - superb!
The next is the Walshy day drive down south with craig, dezzy and scotty.
Even though my car limped through the whole 2/3 days eventually getting flat bed support, it was fantastic.
Calypso Red S1 111s
Kinda all of the above but mostly lucky.
Lucky I guess to have a missus who is loaded because she is smart and works really hard but we bought the Lotus because I (we) love driving so the Liz won out over Porsche, BMW, etc.
But the thing that is something completely different from all of the above is because owning one seems like it is going to be an adventure and lots and lots of fun.
Oh we are not really loaded....we just decided that buying a house wasn't as much fun so we bought the car of our dreams instead!
Lucky I guess to have a missus who is loaded because she is smart and works really hard
but we bought the Lotus because I (we) love driving so the Liz won out over Porsche, BMW, etc. But the thing that is something completely different from all of the above is because owning one seems like it is going to be an adventure and lots and lots of fun.
Oh we are not really loaded....we just decided that buying a house wasn't as much fun so we bought the car of our dreams instead!
Had a '91 Elan, bought from SMT at Finnieston who were the Lotus dealers in Glasgow at that time. When they dropped Lotus, took the car to MMC's Glasgow city centre base for servicing ( Now Majestic Wine store!!!)
Had read about the Elise in the motoring press and when I spotted MMC's yellow demonstrator outside the Glasgow showroom I had to have a closer look and persuaded salesman George to give me a test drive. Loved the feel of the car and the 'back to basic' style. Looked like a supercar shrunk in the wash!! Very raw compared to the Elan.
Signed a cheque for the deposit before I left the showroom, then called my wife-to-be to give her the good news - this was a couple of months before our wedding!! Thankfully she understood; "you can sleep in a car but you can't drive a house!" was her opinion!
That was the first Elise, a standard S1 in Norfolk Mustard with the faired-in headlamps about the only extra. Traded that for a S1 111s in 2000, also in yellow, although not Norfolk Mustard. Was then tempted into an S2 by Graeme at MMC in 2001 - also in yellow!! Really shouldn't have done that - lost a fortune on the 111s!
Couple of weeks after picking up the S2, Graeme called me to ask for the cat back - unknown to me that had put a by-pass pipe on when the fitted the sports exhaust and not charged or told me! Not often you get something for nothing from MMC. The cat must have been lying around in the workshop somewhere.
I consider myself to be very lucky having owned 4 Lotus cars over the years taking them all over Europe including the Monaco GP and Le Mans twice amongst many trips.
Had read about the Elise in the motoring press and when I spotted MMC's yellow demonstrator outside the Glasgow showroom I had to have a closer look and persuaded salesman George to give me a test drive. Loved the feel of the car and the 'back to basic' style. Looked like a supercar shrunk in the wash!! Very raw compared to the Elan.
Signed a cheque for the deposit before I left the showroom, then called my wife-to-be to give her the good news - this was a couple of months before our wedding!! Thankfully she understood; "you can sleep in a car but you can't drive a house!" was her opinion!
That was the first Elise, a standard S1 in Norfolk Mustard with the faired-in headlamps about the only extra. Traded that for a S1 111s in 2000, also in yellow, although not Norfolk Mustard. Was then tempted into an S2 by Graeme at MMC in 2001 - also in yellow!! Really shouldn't have done that - lost a fortune on the 111s!
Couple of weeks after picking up the S2, Graeme called me to ask for the cat back - unknown to me that had put a by-pass pipe on when the fitted the sports exhaust and not charged or told me! Not often you get something for nothing from MMC. The cat must have been lying around in the workshop somewhere.
I consider myself to be very lucky having owned 4 Lotus cars over the years taking them all over Europe including the Monaco GP and Le Mans twice amongst many trips.
Yellow S2 Race Tech
Black Renault Trafic (with LPG conversion)
Black Renault Trafic (with LPG conversion)
Saw the elise when it was launched. New I HAD to have one! Could not afford one for years, and gradually forgot about them. Had some fun cars along the way, but ended getting really sick of the unreliabilty of my Renaultsport clio, and the fuel bills (doing a lot of work milage at the time), so traded it in for a pug 206 deisel in a moment of madness. Hated the pug! Ended up changing jobs a few weeks after getting the pug, which only lasted for 4 months. Then realized the 2nd hand elises were reachable for me. Went out intending to spend about 14K, but ended up spending 18K on a very low milage S1 111s from murrays. Really loved the car, and every minute of owning it. As Mac says, the great extras like SE! Monies dictated that it had to go, so it went a few years ago. Since then I have quit my full time job, gone self employed, saved for a house (with a garage), bought said house, and now just need to save some more for another wee plastic sports car to go in the garage!
We need a new vote - "Whose is the most entertaining story"!mac wrote:Like the S1 when it first came out but couldn't afford anything like it (I was running around in a Citroen Visa FFS)
Saw the S2 at the motorshow with Mandy just after the launch and that just made me want one even more and started Mandy's love affair with the car too.
Anyhoo - there was no way we could afford one, I had just about got a raise that covered the monthly payments but there was still the deposit and as I said there was no way as we were saving hard for our Wedding in Mexico.
Few days later Mandy's sister had a serious horse riding accident (don't you just love having to explain the detail to prevent smutty remarks) which in one foul swoop denied Mandy of her bridesmaid, hairdresser and witness but also took my bestman & witness too (me & my best mate married sisters)
So - one night over dinner we discussed the options, go to the 5*+ hotel on our own, and find some witnesses over here or cancel, put back the wedding to the date of the party we had already book and use the mexico cash on the car.
Simple choice really
The really good thing about buying the car is all the really cool extras you get (that's you guys!)
Mac
You made a great ending out of a bad situation, Mac and Mandy - what a tale
http://www.rathmhor.com | Coaching, training, consultancy
That's a refreshing attitude to choosing a car. And who can deny that Elise ownership is owt but adventure, one way or anotherphraze wrote:because owning one seems like it is going to be an adventure and lots and lots of fun.
http://www.rathmhor.com | Coaching, training, consultancy
i came to UK sometime during August 2005. saw the elise in flesh for the first time in my life. i was so adament i had to buy one. not that i could afford one! to top it all, i stayed in a flat at a dingy side of town. my employer paid me way below the average salary too! (i later came to know the person who cleaned the street was earning far more than me inspite of being an architect). but that didnt discourage me on buying an elise.
i decided to save as much money as possible. for the next 9 months of my life, i walked 40 mins to work be it snow rain or wind, never went to any club, not a single movie, no TV, spent not more than £5 per month on my mobile... lived on the bare minimum! by this point i was so hard on myself, that elise had to be my first car. if not... i'll never buy another car ever!
and then life changed for me one day. i went to murray motors and i got to drive the elise. loved it so much and i bought the same car i test drove.
now the biggest problem was... where do i park the car?
luckily my uncle had a driveway and he let me park the car there. so everytime i wanted to drive the elise, i had to walk 30 mins from home to my uncle's place
things have changed so much in the last 1 year. i got a better job...
getting to the point, so which of the options do i chose from on the votes?
p.s.- for all those who are on this forum and dont own an elise... a little sacrifice can buy u happiness!
i decided to save as much money as possible. for the next 9 months of my life, i walked 40 mins to work be it snow rain or wind, never went to any club, not a single movie, no TV, spent not more than £5 per month on my mobile... lived on the bare minimum! by this point i was so hard on myself, that elise had to be my first car. if not... i'll never buy another car ever!
and then life changed for me one day. i went to murray motors and i got to drive the elise. loved it so much and i bought the same car i test drove.
now the biggest problem was... where do i park the car?
luckily my uncle had a driveway and he let me park the car there. so everytime i wanted to drive the elise, i had to walk 30 mins from home to my uncle's place things have changed so much in the last 1 year. i got a better job...
getting to the point, so which of the options do i chose from on the votes?
p.s.- for all those who are on this forum and dont own an elise... a little sacrifice can buy u happiness!
I picked 'Like Driving'... but, luck does come in to it I guess.
First one I ever saw in the flesh was round the back of MMC... an azure ? blue S1 back in 1997.
I was actually wasting time at Toyota next door getting my RAV4 serviced... Lee Ferguson had sold me it while he was at Toyota... and I bumped in to him at Loch Lomond for the Oasis gig a while later and shared a few beers (good guy)... he then moved over to the Lotus showroom for a while. He spotted me and the wife out looking at a Blue Elan whilst wasting time and came out to warn me off it ... which is when I spotted an Elise round the back. It was like nothing else I had ever seen... sexy, sultry, curvy.. but quite clearly it was a tool for 1 thing.
We were a couple, it had 2 seats.. great... but it was out of my range slightly at that point, but I knew I wanted one.
By the time I could afford one.. we were no longer a couple.. we were 3... then 4... which meant that any 2 seater was strictly going to be a toy... so my financial controller ensisted budget was cut. Also by then, the S2 was around... and although I still preferred the frontage of the S1.. the S2 rear was better to my eyes. An early S1 was in budget... a new S2 was not... so I dabbled with a kit car and then an old TVR... to tide me over.
After house moves etc etc... I only managed to get one this year, and I have my wife to thank for that. I was swithering between the power of the VX220T or the 135R... heart said Lotus... head said Vauxhall... my wife told me to go with my heart otherwise I'd never get it out my system. (still have a hunger for another TVR though)....
First one I ever saw in the flesh was round the back of MMC... an azure ? blue S1 back in 1997.
I was actually wasting time at Toyota next door getting my RAV4 serviced... Lee Ferguson had sold me it while he was at Toyota... and I bumped in to him at Loch Lomond for the Oasis gig a while later and shared a few beers (good guy)... he then moved over to the Lotus showroom for a while. He spotted me and the wife out looking at a Blue Elan whilst wasting time and came out to warn me off it ... which is when I spotted an Elise round the back. It was like nothing else I had ever seen... sexy, sultry, curvy.. but quite clearly it was a tool for 1 thing.
We were a couple, it had 2 seats.. great... but it was out of my range slightly at that point, but I knew I wanted one.
By the time I could afford one.. we were no longer a couple.. we were 3... then 4... which meant that any 2 seater was strictly going to be a toy... so my financial controller ensisted budget was cut. Also by then, the S2 was around... and although I still preferred the frontage of the S1.. the S2 rear was better to my eyes. An early S1 was in budget... a new S2 was not... so I dabbled with a kit car and then an old TVR... to tide me over.
After house moves etc etc... I only managed to get one this year, and I have my wife to thank for that. I was swithering between the power of the VX220T or the 135R... heart said Lotus... head said Vauxhall... my wife told me to go with my heart otherwise I'd never get it out my system. (still have a hunger for another TVR though)....
I have no signature.
pretty much same story as everyone else , first seen an s1 working as an apprentice . Was on a site and this guy who worked there drove one to work everyday , not knowing much bout the car i thought it was worth fortunes and dreamed of owning one someday . worked my way through my trade , then made quite a big decision to move jobs . Proved to be one of the best moves of my life so far . If i hadnt moved I would probably still be cutting around in my fiesta or would perhaps have splashed out on a cheap bmw. Finally became apparent to me that I could afford an elise , started wanting an s1 , then s2, 111s....111r....you know the drill. When i was certain i was gonna buy an s2 elise i dreamed of an exige in orange with black wheels! , i even priced gettin an elise sprayed orange before i had one, and planned on buying the Black OZ wheels !
fcuk it , i bought an exige !
next year i hope to save a bit and trade in the exige for an "s"
I cannot think of any other car i would rather have at the moment , the only one i would consider is an 911 but even then i feel i would miss the exige after a bit .
now i dream ill have a ferrari one day , you never know whats round the corner i never thought id own an exige !
fcuk it , i bought an exige !
next year i hope to save a bit and trade in the exige for an "s"
I cannot think of any other car i would rather have at the moment , the only one i would consider is an 911 but even then i feel i would miss the exige after a bit .
now i dream ill have a ferrari one day , you never know whats round the corner i never thought id own an exige !