FS: 05 Elise, 1500 miles, $35,000 <--a deal!

[fishguy]

the car is sold!!!

[bluejae]

i don't think anyone looking in the engine bay will mistake it for anything else than a lotus

[Ian]

This car is going to have 3 owners with less than 2,000 miles on the clock.

[Andrikos]

Wow, Josh, that didn't last long.
What happened????

[fishguy]

Originally Posted by Andrikos

Wow, Josh, that didn't last long.
What happened????

what happened is that i dont like driving the car on the street, it gets too much attention for me, and i already have an MR2 spyder that is more comfortable(to me) for street driving. I got into doing HPDE(4 days on the car) with the lotus, and its fun, but i am just seeing too many things happening that are just careless and showing poor judgement/inexperience. i dont really want to have my Lotus in the HPDE when i cannot find insurance that covers me while doing HPDE.
I raced motorcycles for 5 years and love the competition. I was thinking of prepping up the lotus for scca regulations, and moving into the race classes out of HPDE(i have been running group 3-4). while the Elise is great for HPDE, i see that the lotus will not be competitive in the classes as the SCCA has it now, and for the $10,000 it will cost to cut up my nice clean car for the SCCA prep, i can get a freshly race prepped Miata that is ready to go. the miata is going to be cheap, and the class limits the mods on the car so its going to emphasis drivers, not wallets. a new rotor on the miata for example is $12, not $300 like the stock lotus rotor. I can get a new engine in a crate for $2K. tires are limited to one choice, and a new set is about $450. I can go do very competitve racing in the region for not very much money. it seems like a no brainer to me. i should be picking my Miata up next week, and here are a few pictures of it(its a done deal). remember its a stock class so, yes its low horsepower(~115), but with about 15 of these in a local club event, and around 50 of them in a regional event, this is going to be a blast.
My Miata has just been rebulit from the ground up, has 5 races on it, and i can beat the crap out of it, crash it, and walk away from it, and just buy another. I cannot/will not/did not do that with my Lotus.
make sense Andreas?

[codymac]

Keep us posted on what it's like moving into spec Miata. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's been tempted by the class.

[Andrikos]

Sure makes sense Josh.
Good luck with the sale!

[Bane]

Nooooo you should keep it for weekend drives with us!

[DragonRider1]

Originally Posted by codymac

Keep us posted on what it's like moving into spec Miata. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's been tempted by the class.

You certainly are not. I still have my 2nd Miata ('93 owned for the last 13 years) out of three and frankly I'm tempted toward Spec Miata's myself. Watching an entire group nose to tail and sometimes 3 abreast at a track beats the snausages out of the spaced train that has become typical of most current forms of racing.

Btw, for the Lotus, that has to be the first time I have *EVER* seen a car with a red interior that I liked!

If I had the spare right now I'd jump on it in a hearbeat... but house first.

Good luck with the sale!

[Blonde1]

Originally Posted by fishguyAZ

I got into doing HPDE(4 days on the car) with the lotus, and its fun, but i am just seeing too many things happening that are just careless and showing poor judgement/inexperience. i dont really want to have my Lotus in the HPDE when i cannot find insurance that covers me while doing HPDE

Not trying to change your mind, just FYI, I have HPDE insurance through American Collectors. Don't know if they write those policies in AZ, though.

Good luck with however you go!

[dma550]

Originally Posted by Blonde1

Not trying to change your mind, just FYI, I have HPDE insurance through American Collectors. Don't know if they write those policies in AZ, though.

Good luck with however you go!

American collectors wouldn't write a policy for my lotus, is it just a DE policy, and you use your other policy for road coverage? They told me they only insure collectible cars, those 20+ years old! I used them on my 550 spyder, and was planning on using them for the Lotus too.

[Blonde1]

Not trying to drag this totally OT (hey, Josh, consider it a bump ), but, yes, I have a separate policy through my 'regular' carrier and the American Collectors policy only covers DE events. It's my understanding that there are a limited number of states in which they write the DE coverage.

[megatron]

Originally Posted by dma550

American collectors wouldn't write a policy for my lotus, is it just a DE policy, and you use your other policy for road coverage? They told me they only insure collectible cars, those 20+ years old! I used them on my 550 spyder, and was planning on using them for the Lotus too.

Not to hyjack, but dma550, have you check into American Hobbyist? They are the sister company to American Collectors. AH will write a policy to "new" collector cars, typically low number limited production like the Lotus, as long as it is not a daily driver. I got a policy with them for my Elise and a 69 Dart.

[Imolas54]

sorry to see it go, best of luck in ur sale!

[polar]

american collect is in the process of discontinuing their DE policies. they told me last week that they will honor policies that are in force now until renewal time. beyond which they will not do any more.

i am in CA. perhaps other states may be different?

[smurfm3]

Great idea. I race a Spec Miata in the San Francisco Region of the SCCA. We regularly have 50- to 70-car fields. It's great fun. Since you have done competitive motorsports before, I'm sure you know that the added aspect of being a "competition" makes more accidents happen. I have averaged about $200 per race (about 12 races excluding about 5 bonus races) in repair costs due to contact and other incidents this season. This number excludes the cost of tires. Factor this into your decision. I thought racing a Spec Miata would be cheap. It is cheaper than racing an M3, but it is not "cheap" by any means (about $10-15k a year for nine weekends in Spec Miata and Improved Touring A).

If you haven't discovered it already, a wealth of knowledge is available at www.specmiata.com.

[fishguy]

Originally Posted by smurfm3

Great idea. I race a Spec Miata in the San Francisco Region of the SCCA. We regularly have 50- to 70-car fields. It's great fun. Since you have done competitive motorsports before, I'm sure you know that the added aspect of being a "competition" makes more accidents happen. I have averaged about $200 per race (about 12 races excluding about 5 bonus races) in repair costs due to contact and other incidents this season. This number excludes the cost of tires. Factor this into your decision. I thought racing a Spec Miata would be cheap. It is cheaper than racing an M3, but it is not "cheap" by any means (about $10-15k a year for nine weekends in Spec Miata and Improved Touring A).

If you haven't discovered it already, a wealth of knowledge is available at www.specmiata.com.

thanks smurfm3 good info, the website is a great resource. thanks for the info, and the "bump" on the lotus advertisement. if you ever wnat to come and run in AZ let me know your coming.
Josh

[Rei]

If it's still avialable for sale in December I'll be on top of that. Just have to wait for my investments to pay off.

[fishguy]

bump

[babak]

Fish, funny bump. It's a tempting car, good deal for the mods etc.