My Lotus Diary September 2001

27^th September 2001

It turns out that Vauxhall owners are still waiting for their hardtops too! They are expecting a simple panel design though, no fancy gullwing affair. I follow the VX220 e-group and it's interesting how things repeat themselves. They are going through the same discovery process as those early Elise owners. If only they could see that they've bought a rebadged/rebodied Elise, they would save themselves a lot of time, effort and money, by learning from others that have been there before them. But I guess that this discovery process is part of the 'fun' of ownership.

Strathcarron have run into SVA problems requiring them to get the K-series into the car. It might just finish them financially and I'm not sure that they is much of a market for another K-series track car. Just when the likes of Caterham are moving to bike engines, they come back the other way. Not sure what it will do to handling either. The Elise is not the best raod car or the best track car but it is the best balance between the two (for most people) and is still a great road and track day car, as the latest awards in various magazines have shown.

There's also a recession on and sales of the Elise and VX220 are not increasing, whilst production is. Delivery times are falling and a number of dealers now have cars in stock. My guess is that Lotus were hoping to raise prices before March next year but I can't see it happening for now. Lotus have now made over 1000 Elise S2's.

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