Lots Of Trouble, Usually Serious

Lotus have a reputation. One I used to think was overly harsh given the relative lack of bother my brother has with his car. I say relative, because you have to take certain precautions with an S1 Elise to stop it falling to pieces around you. His car lives a fairly charmed life. It's kept in a nice warm garage, it's fastidiously maintained by a local Lotus Specialist and my brother is so anal, that the tiniest fault is corrected. As such it's never really let him down. It does have it's foibles, but as long as you treat it like a posh kit car rather than robot built production car, you can pretty much get by.

In an attempt to avoid the problems of the S1 Elise I specifically sought a Toyota engined S2. The theory being that, unlike the fragile K-Series, the Toyota Corolla lump should be nigh on bulletproof. Also, since the VX220, it was often said that Lotus build quality, and quality control, had improved greatly. So with this in mind I was looking specifically for a 2006 Elise. Mainly because I much prefer the pre-federal Elises without the dogem car steering wheels and overly plastic dashes. Yes, I am that tarty. Plus, still in the back of my head was Lotus and electrics, no power windows and no airbags are two more things that are less likely to fail.

So the car I bought was pretty much spot on my ideal spec. It's a 2006 Elise S in Ardent Red. It looks and drives lovely. Ok, so it's not quite as good condition-wise than if it had been mine from new. But it ain't bad at all. With a bit of GJOBbery, it was brought up to spec pretty quickly. Then just as I was starting to really enjoy it, the fun and games began.