I just spent the day at Lotus in Hethel. Had a factory tour then driving instruction on the track. Asked a lot of questions during the factory tour re: US spec cars!
Saw ALL the new colours in person. Despite the miserable wet conditions, I took an S2 Elise over 100mph on the test track with the instructor yelling "More! More!!" as we dove through the chicane! -eek- After a few laps confidence built and I was told I was a "good little driver"
:clap: I have been on a few track days and an advanced road driving course (with a traffic cop), so I know the basics and understand racing lines, but I've never had the confidence to put it all into practice with full power through the corners. The combination of the Elise and the fantastic instructor gave me that confidence, and I felt the car moving in a way that I've only felt when other people give me demo laps. G-force tastic!
It's convinced me to go for LSS and put in some serious track time.
As I said, I asked a lot of questions on the factory tour, so if you want to know anything fire away, before I forget!
The stuff I do remember is:
- they are currently building 97 cars per week
- 42 of these are US cars (they are aiming for 40, but getting extras done in overtime - good lads!!)
- cars are *not* colour batched (they all go into the spray booth separately, so colour batching doesn't save any time)
- cars are built in the order they are ordered
- the US car has slightly softer tyres than the Euro one (convinced me to go LSS as I'm used to UK-spec cars)
- I was told that the LSS/Exige tyres deserved a bit of extra care in the wet, but they weren't anything to be terrified of, and in the dry they would be incredibly sticky. ie: in the wet, don't stick your foot down coming out of a sharp bend, but other than that you should be ok. For me with a TVR this is standard common sense practice anyway, so I feel confident going with LSS. Esp. as in Texas the dry road conditions will outweight the wet.
- the Toyota engine is tuned by Yamaha and revs to 8600!! Basically a bike engine... :clap:
Ok, I'm a little giddy...
As I said, I asked a lot of questions on the factory tour, so if you want to know anything fire away, before I forget!
The stuff I do remember is:
- they are currently building 97 cars per week
- 42 of these are US cars (they are aiming for 40, but getting extras done in overtime - good lads!!)
- cars are *not* colour batched (they all go into the spray booth separately, so colour batching doesn't save any time)
- cars are built in the order they are ordered
- the US car has slightly softer tyres than the Euro one (convinced me to go LSS as I'm used to UK-spec cars)
- I was told that the LSS/Exige tyres deserved a bit of extra care in the wet, but they weren't anything to be terrified of, and in the dry they would be incredibly sticky. ie: in the wet, don't stick your foot down coming out of a sharp bend, but other than that you should be ok. For me with a TVR this is standard common sense practice anyway, so I feel confident going with LSS. Esp. as in Texas the dry road conditions will outweight the wet.
- the Toyota engine is tuned by Yamaha and revs to 8600!! Basically a bike engine... :clap:
Ok, I'm a little giddy...