Lotus Elise

[DanDarcy]

Oh yeah, how good is a "good deal" on one o' those?!

tres Cool f'sho!

I bought the car at a dealer auction it has 2200 miles but has a damage rear wheel and cracked rocker panel. Price was in the low 20s, needs about $4-5 k to make whole and nice again.

Raj : my Mustang is the older 4 cam Cobra 300h.p. and is heavier than a regular GT. plus I have a roll cage, AC, AM-FM-CD 8 speaker Stereo, rear seat, full carpet, fog lights, etc. I know I could remove about 300-400# from the car but I like the looks of a "whole" car and besides the air conditioning is nice on hot days in the staging lane

I have seen several Loti go through the salvage auction and Don is right-- there is nothing left to them after they hit . plus the fold up like tin foil and are impossible to repair. I hear they are fun to track though. Maybe an Ariel Atom 2 would be cool

[DanB]

Rajito (is that like a Mojito?),
That 3720 "curb weight" HAS to include driver and passenger(s). Your car shouldn't weigh more than 3300 lb. empty. As if that weren't enough!

Damn, cars are *heavy* these days...

Holy cow, 3720! I'm just quoting the published curb weight for my car. I'll try it out on the NHIS scales and see what it does

Raj

[rajito]

Rajito (is that like a Mojito?),
That 3720 "curb weight" HAS to include driver and passenger(s). Your car shouldn't weigh more than 3300 lb. empty. As if that weren't enough!

Damn, cars are *heavy* these days...

Holy cow, 3720! I'm just quoting the published curb weight for my car. I'll try it out on the NHIS scales and see what it does

Raj

Dan, my car's curb weight is listed as 3350. It's D'Arcy's car that weighs 3720. We'll see what the NHIS scales say it weighs in "track form".

Cars are idiotically heavy these days. I'm impressed that the Z06 weighs "only" 3100 lbs, and I think the C6 weighs less. Too bad they are such stereotypical midlife crisis cars (wtf is with the automatic option on those!)

Raj

[DanDarcy]

Dan B : Its my Mustang that weights 3720# on the NHIS scales w/1/2 tank of fuel and no driver , 3775# with Raj in it and 4900# with me in it

Raj : you should try a Z06 before you knock them who cares what image they portray its more how they go and handle I had a 2001 , did my first Com driving school in it (too fast) 120mph on the straightat NHIS (easily), plus 25 to 30 mpg on trips. I keep thinking of getting another.

[rajito]

Dude, you're preaching to the choir. I give the Z06 a lot of credit - there are plenty of stuck up "performance" cars that cost a ridiculous amount of money that can't come close to the Z06's raw performance potential.

If Chevy can hire an interior design team who realize that it's 2006 and not 1976, the car would be that much better.

Oh, and stop freaken' selling Corvettes with automatics.
Raj

[Tsurara]

If Chevy can hire an interior design team who realize that it's 2006 and not 1976, the car would be that much better.

Pfft, silly noob, the only real interior for a Corvette is stripped with a drivers bucket seat, cage, and a harness.

[cfossum]

My calendar says it's 2007
-Carl

[RyanC]

My calendar says it's 2007
-Carl

Carl, it's for exactly this reason we keep you around. Kudos, my friend!

[cfossum]

I bask in the glory of being able to snuff any thread at will.

[DanDarcy]

I love the smell of Corvette " pleather " in the morning

[enjoythemusic]

A Turbo Elise?
I don't even want to imagine how fast that would be.

LRP under 58 seconds and must note the car WAS NOT street legal. VERY talented driver and the new Loti reaching market will be a stunner.

The problem is that the Loti are being eaten up on the LONG straights by muscle cars. Of course the Loti can generally have faster corner exit speed, yet there is no replacement for displacement during long straights.

Amen on it being fragile. I was instructing with another group at WGI last year... Turns out it was ONE Elise that did the "I think I can save it" routine...

Don, think i was at that event and yeah, it TOTALLED the Lotus and shards were all over the place. Worse still, the driver was a dealer and it was his customer's car (who was at the track, not in car). Needles to say the customer got a new car. Agree that the Loti looked like it was chewed up in a blender and spit out.

For those wondering, the front clip is one piece of f'glass, called a clamshell, and will set ya back around $5k to replace. And here i felt the $1k deep Euro aero the Italian pony chews through (due to being 2.5-inches off the ground) each year was expensive.

[enjoythemusic]

...there are plenty of stuck up "performance" cars that cost a ridiculous amount of money that can't come close to the Z06's raw performance potential.

100% agree! And now that they dialed back/retuned the Z06 suspension the car is less twitchy. Frankly, i LOVE seeing a Z06 eat up the Ferrari guys at FCA events. Even more enjoyable is the Z06 guy can ball up a car, ball up ANOTHER car, and STILL have $$$ to buy a third car for the cost of one of those new/newish Italian ego-boosters.

[tmak26b]

With the pavement the way it is, driving a Elise fast at LRP cant be fun. What production stock cars out there can hit the below 1 mark anyway, lets say on race rubbers. I am thinking maybe the EVO, Z06, 997 and maybe the Cayman S. WHat do you guys think?

A Turbo Elise?
I don't even want to imagine how fast that would be.

LRP under 58 seconds and must note the car WAS NOT street legal. VERY talented driver and the new Loti reaching market will be a stunner.

The problem is that the Loti are being eaten up on the LONG straights by muscle cars. Of course the Loti can generally have faster corner exit speed, yet there is no replacement for displacement during long straights.

Amen on it being fragile. I was instructing with another group at WGI last year... Turns out it was ONE Elise that did the "I think I can save it" routine...

Don, think i was at that event and yeah, it TOTALLED the Lotus and shards were all over the place. Worse still, the driver was a dealer and it was his customer's car (who was at the track, not in car). Needles to say the customer got a new car. Agree that the Loti looked like it was chewed up in a blender and spit out.

For those wondering, the front clip is one piece of f'glass, called a clamshell, and will set ya back around $5k to replace. And here i felt the $1k deep Euro aero the Italian pony chews through (due to being 2.5-inches off the ground) each year was expensive.

[rajito]

100% agree! And now that they dialed back/retuned the Z06 suspension the car is less twitchy. Frankly, i LOVE seeing a Z06 eat up the Ferrari guys at FCA events. Even more enjoyable is the Z06 guy can ball up a car, ball up ANOTHER car, and STILL have $$$ to buy a third car for the cost of one of those new/newish Italian ego-boosters.

Blasphemy! Stephan is going to kill you now!

Raj

[RyanC]

With the pavement the way it is, driving a Elise fast at LRP cant be fun. What production stock cars out there can hit the below 1 mark anyway, lets say on race rubbers. I am thinking maybe the EVO, Z06, 997 and maybe the Cayman S. WHat do you guys think?

I dunno how much faster the track is in the summer, but a fully built T2 Evo on sticker hoosiers ran 1:00.7 with a great driver behind the wheel; I'd have a hard time thinking a stock Evo on the same tires would do better.