Moving to Lotus

[james s]

Hi all

Having run three Porsches as weekend / track cars I am now looking to change my 944 turbo. Initial thought was to go for one of the lightweight Porsches 964 RS or 968 clubsport, but the thought occurred to me a Lotus might be a better choice in terms for both fun and running costs.

I am looking to spend less than 15K to protect against too much depreciation and reliability / reasonable annual costs are a must. Am I right to be thinking of an Elise and if so which one for this sort of money.

Does anyone do limited mileage policies - I pay less than £500 for my Porsche.
Finally how reliable are they. Porsche has never let me down and I have discounted TVR which was my second choice as a couple of days reading the forum convinced me that their reputation for reliability was, if anything, generous.

Thanks for any help you can give.

[DanH]

Serving is pretty cheap.

Track day usage will wear things, but still a lot cheaper than most other cars. Its a light car so you won't be eating disks+pads as quickly. Main consumable is ball joints etc but they aren't that expensive and they don't exactly go quickly.

Expensive to repair if you have a prang though, but thats fibreglass for you. Also if you damage the chassis you are pretty much screwed as they can't be rejigged etc.

For your usage I'd probably go for a sport 160 or possibly a 111S. They should be within your budget.

[dragstar]

they are very reliable.

test drive one and have a look through the threads:

www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=79490&f=15&h=0&hw=review

...and a few others. there is no TVR-style problems and it will get you home 99.99/100 times

For a track car, you cant go wrong with an elise

[james s]

Thanks Chaps,

Sport 160 sounds interesting - any downsides I need to look out for other than the rough idling which is mentioned in the pistonheads buyers guide

[mustard]

Downsides.... finding one that hasnt had its nuts thraped off or been tracked to death

If you can stretch a bit more how about an Exige, lot more of those have been kept as 'play things' and often come with 192bhp

by a bit, i mean circa 6k!

>> Edited by mustard on Sunday 15th February 18:32

[DanH]

Except that exiges came with 177bhp, so make sure it has been upgraded. Also look for some fallout on the prices depending on what happens with the S2 Exige. Not a safe time to get an Exige imho.