[smoseley]

Ok, so most of you are familiar with the problems I had with Prestige. As it turns out, a buddy of mine knows the owner really well, and in fact, he bought his SL500 there. So I was telling him today what happened to me and he said "Let's go down there and clear this **** up."

We went to Prestige this afternoon and spoke to them. We got a lot of things cleared up about what I was promised.

 

[CAErven]

transio

Me, I'd screw you out of your spot in a heartbeat to get an Elise faster. LOL

Just my opinion - good chance I'm wrong.

 

[MattG]

Nice to hear things working out for you.

As for whether or not dealers are taking orders, we have all sorts of conflicting info there. Your dealer, and the one in Denver, are both stating that Lotus is not accepting orders right now, there is no 'ten order' requirement. Other dealers are stating the opposite. I was told by Clyde, at the LA show, that the dealers are indeed being told to get their first orders in sometime soon.

Clyde, if you're out there reading this, can you please help us out and tell us just what exactly is going on?

 

[apkom]

Hi Matt,
I though you said you got called to put your order in by 9th.
Did you put it?

As for whether or not dealers are taking orders, we have all sorts of conflicting info there.

Clyde, if you're out there reading this, can you please help us out and tell us just what exactly is going on?

 

[adamant]

Steve,
I am really glad that you got things sorted out. You aren't going to be too far behind the first batches, considering you contacted the dealer about a year later than me
If you read some of the threads carefully, there are quite a few dealerships that have not taken firm orders yet. I don't believe that LCUSA has requested any firm orders yet, but informally some employees may have prepared some of the dealerships. I am #1 here in Salt Lake and my dealership here has not had any such undertaking from LCUSA yet. Hopefully LCUSA will ship more than 1 car to each dealership. I could see that demo cars may be built early and each dealership would get one. Following that I don't know how the vehicles will be allocated. Hopefully they will not just feed the highly populated areas first, so all the dealerships at least get a few cars.
If LCUSA are listening it would help relieve the tension if the dealerships were notified when they might expect say each of their first 10 cars. I am sure if waiters had at least some idea when their cars are going arrive it would make everything run a lot smoother.

 

[JonOrangeElise]

I have to say that any dealer that lets an undertrained 16 year old kid work with customers has a basic management problem. But at least now the whole predicament makes sense -- when you told this board your (then rosy) situation back when you ordered the car, it just seemed too good to be true. I.e., most people getting first-batch cars ordered in 2002 or early 2003.

 

[smoseley]

Yeah, at the time I wasn't aware of news previous to the R&T article about the Elise heading for the US. Anyhow, I'm relatively satisfied. I guess I'll have to wait and see how everything pans out.

 

[MattG]

Hi Matt,
I though you said you got called to put your order in by 9th.
Did you put it?

Yes, though SVAG was asking for me to finalize my order by the end of last weekend, not the 9th as reported of other dealers. I chose Magnetic blue, hardtop, and the touring package with biscuit leather.

 

[Canyon Carver]

As for whether or not dealers are taking orders, we have all sorts of conflicting info there. Your dealer, and the one in Denver, are both stating that Lotus is not accepting orders right now, there is no 'ten order' requirement. Other dealers are stating the opposite. I was told by Clyde, at the LA show, that the dealers are indeed being told to get their first orders in sometime soon.

Keep your fingers crossed, by weeks end our Dealer Principal should be in contact with Arnie Johnson, hopefully he'll shed some more light on the situation. If you were to walk in our showroom right now though I'd still stand behind my earlier comments.

 

[LarryB]

Wonder a bit about how importation a it is to have the first 10 cars in by Jan 9. Its one thing for the dealer to take a order, another for Lotus to do somehting with it. Earlier reports was production would start in the second half of March. With the dealer demo cars being the first ones off the line. Given the careful approach Lotus seems to be taking, would think that likely. It would give them a chance to shake out the production line. Most likely would hold on to them for a few extra days to run them around the track a bit and put a few miles on them. A pilot run of sorts.

Best guess at this point seems to be pointing at May or June for first delivery. Given ~30 days for delivery and 2-3 weeks for assembly. Figure another month to pre-plan the start of the following months production. My guess, first orders should be into Lotus within the next 3-5 weeks.

One question to run by the dealers or Lotus, is there a ranking in submitting the orders? It's more tied into allocation (which we don't know at this point). With 38 dealers and a production run of 2400 per year, that averages out to about five cars per month/dealer. So ten cars would be two months production. There is the potential even if your in the top five that you might end up getting your car in the second month production if the order doesn't have a rank to it. Would expect them to build the full range of what there offering every month. So maybe only a two week delay at most.

 

[MattG]

With five or so months until the Elise is supposedly due to arrive here, you'd think Lotus would have this figured out. After all, they've been planning the Elise' arrival in the US for many, many years by now.

 

[Steve W]

I told Tony Shute at the LA auto show that I was there in part to sort out colours and options because my dealer wanted my order by the 9th. He said that was good because he wasn't leaving the US until he had 200 orders from the Dealer.

On top of that my dealer put alot of pressure on me to get my order in early, well before the 9th deadline. They seemed to be under the impression that the earlier they got their 10 car first order in, the the higher in the list they would be to have their cars made and shipped.

Dunno whether to buy that or not, but take it for what it's worth.

Steve

 

[Dan]

I told Tony Shute at the LA auto show that I was there in part to sort out colours and options because my dealer wanted my order by the 9th. He said that was good because he wasn't leaving the US until he had 200 orders from the Dealer.

If it really is just 200 orders, that means just 20 dealers were asked to fax in their first 10 orders. That would explain why some dealers have not begun to call their top 9 customers. If this is the case, then it seems like Lotus has already made some initial decisions on allocation.