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Doug Demuro drives Elise cross country

2.4K views 14 replies 11 participants last post by  gimpwiz  
#1 ·
 
owns 2006 Lotus Elise
#2 ·
When I was into Doug I always wondered why he never did an Elise. Guess that long roundtrip was enough for him! He also did a good article about how he bought it for 30k and sold it for 30k. I believe it was "How to own a Lotus Elise for free" or something along those lines.
 
#3 ·
I thought I had remembered that as well. This had popped up in my feed so I shared.
 
owns 2006 Lotus Elise
#7 ·
Not sure if everyone knows, but kinda a 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon thing here...
But the smaller interviewer, Graham Stephan, used to own a S240 Exige.. that he sold on to @mattjk. After Matt passed away, our own @Harix now has the car!
 
#11 ·
I've driven one cross-country twice! I am 6'2" and I fit fine. the 2005 seats suck, but otherwise, what whiner. I am no glutton for punishment or anything, but it just wasn't that big a deal. I did the first trip in 3 days. NH to PA to see Penske. Then PA to OK. OK to AZ. The 2nd 2 days were 1000 mile days.
 
#12 ·
TBH, I've done enough 1000 mile days that I have lost count years ago, but I got too tired in the Elise after eleven-twelve hours. The non-op lumbar support bladder in the seat was one problem; the other was the mis-matched, worn out / aged out / unbalanced tires, and mediocre alignment, which just caused a lot of driver fatigue and a lot more NVH than is usual. I don't know how well I would handle a 'proper' Elise for the ~15-16 hours (incl gas etc) it takes to drive 1000 miles, but I applaud you for doing it.

With that said - most people aren't gonna be able to do that without a lot of complaints. Which is fair, honestly. The seats are hard, the position unusual, no cruise control, exceedingly little work to dampen NVH, etc. I don't think they're weenies for not enjoying driving an Elise 10+ hours a day, though I still think the complaints are overwrought.
 
#13 ·
TBH, I had PLENTY of complaints about the seat comfort! Lack of cruise control makes it more tiring. I don't think I could do those 1000 mile days anymore at least not easily. But overwrought? Definitely.
 
#14 ·
I DID PLENTY OF LONG DISTANCE DRIVES IN MY eLISE WITH THE ONLY STOPS BEING EVERY 225-300 MILES FOR GAS. ONLY FEATURE IT LACKED WAS cRUISE CONTROL, A GAME CHANGER FOR LEG RELAXATION.
Caps lock hell today
 
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#15 ·
My tank reads funny - it throws an empty light after like 200 miles. I assume that most of you have the "normal car" behavior in which you fill up and it stays at FULL for a while before budging off. Mine is the opposite - I fill up and it ticks down nearly immediately from the full marker, like within 20-ish miles I'll see it's moved off. Now I assume this is just a weird tuning quirk of my specific copy of the Elise, as opposed to the tank having a problem where it never fills up adequately. ¯\\\(ツ)/¯ I have not been brave enough to put 250-300 miles on it to find out.