My Lotus Barn

[...m...]

Originally Posted by RichS

That is inspiring. I'm already looking at a spot on the back of my lot and thinking I could throw up something like that with relative ease... (Compared to say, custom building my house.)

...did the six-car garage with an attached house fall through?..

[polojcp]

All I can say is that I envy your beautiful barn. (garage)

I love your M100, I really want to get one myself, but it is so hard to find a clean one now.

[lotus69f2]

Originally Posted by shokwaves

Sweeeeet!!!
I see you got plenty o' room for the Evora.
One thing you need as any super cool garage is this S2 system. I have it and LOOOVE IT!!!
Storage Squared | Garage and Home Storage and Organization Solutions | Organization Through Innovation.

That is a really nice system. For my application though, I decided not to put things on the walls. This is for the following reasons. They are made of steel, so any hole that is made is not easily repairable, I wanted everything to be easily mmovable so if I felt I needed to rearrange things it would be easier, I wanted to keep as much as possible hidden so as I accumulate things it doesn't seem cluttered. THe things that are on the walls are paper towel dispensers - held in place with silicon sealant, and fire extinguishers - which utilize already existing holes and fasteners. So far so good, but certain things don't fit in or should go into cabinets so I still have a bit of clutter.

[lotus69f2]

Originally Posted by polojcp

I love your M100, I really want to get one myself, but it is so hard to find a clean one now.

You are the third Elise owner who told me they would really like an M100. The M100 doesn't get a lot of respect amongst the enthusiasts for the classic era, likewise most modern Lotus owners dismiss it as well. Anyone who has driven one soon finds out it is a really nice car and despite certain shortcoming holds up well to the Lotus ethos. You are correct about finding a clean one. Most are Model year 1991 so they are 18 years old now! And similar to the Elise many are subject to modification. Because of numbers produced it is easy to find and unmolested Elise, but since ther were only 545 M100's imported and they are 18 years old, and many have been modified, finding a clean on is indeed difficult.

I have been previously asked to show more car photos and to give some vignettes on my cars. I am planning on doing so. I am going to go chronologically in order of acquisitions. That makes the M100 first. Hopefully I'll get it done today.

[lotus69f2]

Originally Posted by ggelise

Could you post detailed pic's of your security system

If you plan on breaking in you had better be prepared to run away.

[lotus69f2]

The first Lotus in my collection is an M100 Elan, though at the time I acquired it I was not planning on being a collector. But it did in fact infect me with the Lotus bug. I remember deciding to buy a cool car and at the time the last version of the RX-7 had just come out. I looked at it and drove it and was almost ready to buy one when I started to have misgivings and decidied that maybe something more classic was the way to go. At the time I was really a newbie to the whole collector car thing, and the only source - with pictures - that I knew of to look was the Dupont Registry, so I bought a copy and started looking through it. THat's when I saw then Elan, I loved it right away just from the pictures. I also saw that the dealer local to me - Rothrock - was advertising them for way less than MSRP (circa $40k). One - a dealer demo - was $24,900. I called and spoke to then GM John Guth who told me he had just been informed that day that Lotus was discontinuing them and he would get no more on the lot (this was actually true, and not a sales gimmick). He told me he had 3 on the lot, he'd sell the first for $29,900, the second for $34,900, and the last for whatever he could get for it. I went down the next day and looked at them - they are much more attractive in person. We went for a spirited test drive, and I decided to buy one. The choices were White, Red or Silver. I chose White, really the only difference between the three. We did the paper work, sat in John's office for a bit talking Lotus, then he handed me a bunch of Lotus trinkets and I was on my way to Lotus lunacy.

It looks better with the top down.

[lotus69f2]

Along the way it has been very reliable. The only thing that broke was the Cam Angle Sensor, which is a common fault and easy to diagnose and replace. The only things I have doen to modify it are to put in an alarm system, and replace the stock exhaust with a stainless peformance replacement that supposedly gives another 5 hp, but i suspect only changes the exhaust note from a VW Beetle-like burble to something a bit more rorty. I still have the original exhaust.

[dickedup]

Originally Posted by lotus69f2

If you plan on breaking in you had better be prepared to run away.

Love what you've done to the place but just a tad sterile. Please refer to the example set by Steve McQueen... as illustrated here in this photo of his digs at the Santa Paula, California airport.



Lets see the beer fridge and some comfy chairs too.

[Beanie]

Wowie. I would just put a couch, kitchenette, and home theatre in there and forget about the house.

[pixlpush]

There's one very important item missing. If ever there was a garage in need of one of these kegerators, this is it:

here's the link to the original post about the kegerator:
kegerater diaries

[...m...]

Originally Posted by lotus69f2

The first Lotus in my collection is an M100 Elan, though at the time I acquired it I was not planning on being a collector.

...beautiful example...i've often thought about picking one up someday; hopefully they won't be too dear to do so affordably when the day comes...

[Vishus_1]

Is it true that the M100 Elan is not painted but the color is throughout the body panel? I had heard that if it gets a rock chip, the color is still visible.

[jlj3394]

Wow.....just wow....

I rarely get jealous. I am right now.

Your garage is awesome.

[lotusland]

Kyle,

Thank you for sharing. I really enjoy seeing the enthusiasm for the Lotus name.

[lotus69f2]

Originally Posted by Vishus_1

Is it true that the M100 Elan is not painted but the color is throughout the body panel? I had heard that if it gets a rock chip, the color is still visible.

If only that were true. No, if the paint is chipped on an M100 the underlying color of the bodywork shows through. It is sort of a bone color, which fortunately for owners of white cars like myself isn't too conspicuous. The front bumpers of M100's - and Esprits as well - can get sandblasted by road debris. Fortunately I have seen only a few where it was bad enough to show the bone color through.

Perhaps you were thinking of the Fiero, which could be driven with no bodywork. That car had molded plastic bodywork that had color through and through.

[lotus69f2]

Originally Posted by RichS

That is inspiring. I'm already looking at a spot on the back of my lot and thinking I could throw up something like that with relative ease... (Compared to say, custom building my house.)

I did both at the same time. I tried really hard to not only integrate the builing into the property well, but also the community. I also wanted the size and proprtion of the buildings to be complimentary. I hope I succeeded.

[dickedup]

Originally Posted by pixlpush

There's one very important item missing. If ever there was a garage in need of one of these kegerators, this is it:

here's the link to the original post about the kegerator:
kegerater diaries

Couple of us have asked about fridges and beer... but the Redneck is fully consumed in that Looky@Me Mode.

Lets hope he snaps out of it soon.

[lotus69f2]

It took a year or so to really get bitten by the Lotus bug. I joined Lotus Limited and PALS and met some really nice people so getting together with other Lotus folk seemed natural and a nice way to spend time. One Winter I was bored so I started reading books about Lotus. The first was Hughs' Lotus Elan - about the M100. The second was Cormbac's Chapman bio. It was then that I started to really get into Lotus as a hobby rather than just as a cool car.

Around that time I also realized that driving the Elan at anywhere near its potential on the street was insane. I wanted to do some high performance driving and found out about vintage racing, which seemed a natural way to get another Lotus since Lotus had so many racing cars in its history.

The least expensive Lotus race car was and still is the Type 61Mx. I contacted a fellow Lotus Ltd member - Bill Dolson, and he hooked me up with a seller of a reasonably priced car. I was then a 2 Lotus man and well on my way to becoming a collector and full fledged Lotuseer.

[Moto44]

Kyle has been working on the property for some time now and has been very discreet about the bits he has shared about his Lotus barn. I requested that he post up about his progress. So, I think it is highly unfair and judgmental for anyone to assume that this has anything to do with showing off.

The mere act of driving our cars in public causes many people to assume that we are show offs. This is one place that we should be able to share our joy and enthusiasm for our cars and garages without having to answer to such accusations.

Kyle, I think it is fair to say that most of us are very appreciative that you have been kind enough to share the story and photos of your garage and are sharing your joy.

[lotus69f2]

The Type 61Mx is the apogee of a long line of Lotus formula cars starting with the Lotus 20 Formula Junior. The Type 20 chassis was developed into the 22(Junior), then 31(F3 and the first, albeit retrofitted, Formula Ford, then 41 (F3,FB), 51 (FF), and finally 61. The Type 61 was basically a 51 with modifications to change from cigar to wedge shaped bodywork, and an additional stiffening tube across the top of the front chassis, a modified shifter mount, and some alteration in suspension pick-up points.

It is a better handling car than the 51, and easier to shift because of the shifter set up, but was a backwards step in aerodynamics. The shape was intended to evoke the Type 56 turbine Indy cars which did in fact benefit from significant downforce produced by the bodywork. In the FF however, the increased drag could not be overcome by the low hp powerplant so the car is a veritable brick. In order to try to rectify this they did away with the engine cover, and cut the bodywork down at the cockpit. They rivetted a pice of aluminum angle strip to the cut off in order to be able to located it on the undertray, and added F3 instead of FF to the chassis tag. I don't think the F3 fooled anyone. The changes helped, but the newer designs from other manufacturers were not only more aerodynamic, but also more modern and better chassis.

Having said that though, I still hold my own in vintage Formula Ford against much better cars. Formula Ford was and still is a drivers formula.