My Owners Diary April 2001

2^nd April 2001

6^th April 2001

17^th April 2001

The better news is that production rates of the S2 are increasing and waiting lists are shortening with lots of people having their queue time reduced by several months.

29^th April 2001

We were then taken on a 40 minute factory tour, starting on the old Elise line which is now making Exiges. Most of the Exiges were coming off the line with air-conditioning fitted. We then went in to the new Elise/VX220 factory. It is such an advance from the old production line with a huge new factory which is gleaming. It is a much more modern and cleaner environment and with all the new tooling, you know these cars are going to be better built. We got a good chance to look over the new Elises and plenty of opportunity to spot the various improvements made on the new car. This includes things like the door-stays, window winders, heating controls, etc. Even the speaker mountings are improved with the speaker directly mounted on the rear bulkhead and no longer stuck on, in a seperate enclosure. So many little things have been improved and a lot of thought has so obviously gone into changes and the way the changes have been made. The overall quality looked much higher. The production line is like a vast high-tech clean room and the new paint shop is exactly that. The VX220 and Elise S2 are built on two lines side by side, almost echoing the competition between them in the showroom and on the road. I wonder if the factory workers see it as a race? The VX220 looks very good but, standing next to an Elise it is no competition in my eyes. The Elise looks more agressive and purposeful.

At the end of the line were a new Silver and Calypso Red Elise awaiting new customers, allowing me to make a side by side comparision of my two favourite colours. The silver car looked stunning but then so did the Calypso Red, from the rear it will easily be mistaken as a Ferrari by a large number of the public. The Silver just won the day, but I later saw one outside and in the daylight it looks so different. It doesn't work so well, it's just too light and as I'd previously thought doesn't hide the detail well. Calypso Red is going to be my choice of colour this time, it is a bit in your face but it suits the car so well. Not a sign of a hard top was seen. An external carpark was full of VX220's and some lucky people were doing driver training out near the Lotus test track. An S2 Elise was being put through it's paces and the sound of squeeling rubber was a constant background noise.

I met up with a number of people from the various BBS's and on the journey back to Ipswich I passed my old Elise, still looking good and going strong.

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