Diesel Elise on the cards then...

So, does this mean in 4 years time, or whenever their vehicles are set for a facelift, it'll be ok to own a Proton?

Perhaps the Elise (and indeed other Lotuses) will contract an STD...

Damned... bought mine too early.

If Lotus is going to get the same treatment as Lamborghini and Bugatti, Lots Of Trouble Usually Serious will be loosing its meaning.

Tom De Moor

You know what that means. SteveH's next corporate double wide office substitute wont be made in Mlada Boroslav anymore as Skoda workers are too skilled and overpaid.

Instead they will be nailed together by a slave labour orangutan with Banana withdrawl in Kuala Lumpa. LOL, Might as well be Korean. At least the Koreans love their technology, even if they make it shoddy because they treat it as disposable and want the next big thing before the last one has even been delivered.

I can just see the badging. Suspension by Lotus. Engine by Skoda. Pricing by VW Quality control by Proton. ;)

I like numbers more.

Maintenance bill (every 5000 km) on a Lambo Countach : 10.000 Eur Maintenance bill (every 15000 km) on a VW Murcielago: 5.000 Eur

Km before failure : Countach : 1000 km km before failure : Murcielago : ?? (last time checked the clocks idicated 63.000 km). Not even once towed honme: this ain't no Lambo!

Yep: it stays expensif. Yep again: the Countach is beastier than the bat but, boy oh boy, does the bat kicks the bull.

As much as I hate to say it: well done, VW.

For those concerned: it is not my Murcielago. The car belongs to a friend and is the reason why my 928 must have some more poke. I am not into noise but the Murcielago at speed makes the hairs in my neck stand straight.

Wouldn't say no to a reliable Countach either but it's at its best viewed from about 10m, not closer.

Back to my cars: Lotus... yep third time: too bad that VW hadn't taken over yett (I suppose the light switches on the Elise are made on purpose as bad as they are). Lightness is no excuse for bad workmanship.

Tom De Moor

Yeah, but that isn't going to wind SteveH up is it.

Last thing the elise needs is a VW boatanchor under the bonnet. Of course the Audi V8 in the back of a new Esprit (whatever it gets called) would work nicely. And there's a company that sticks the RS4 V6 into the elise already.

You'll have to tag your posts if winding is the name of the game :-)

TDM

I would have thought twisting the knife regarding the balance of VAG brands in one car in favour of making it overpriced and poorly built would have been enough. :)

Have you got any details on that? I've seen 1.8T conversions and they're a very tight fit, I'd like to see how they managed to get the V6 in.

The 1.8T is becoming increasingly common in Caterham / Westfield thingies.

I looked into doing that conversion when I had my Westfield. Westfield don't sell the parts you need, you have to get them from the Westfield distributor in Holland who designed the conversion. Unfortunately it's not cheap, the biggest problem being the bellhousing which is designed for the MT75 gearbox and that can only take moderate levels of power, if you want lots of power you need their bellhousing for a sequential box. I've yet to see one in the UK.

PPC are building a TDI Westfield.

Just realised it's probably the XTR4 you're talking about rather than the 7 replica?

Yeah, I've seen that. Going to be interesting to see how it performs with all that torque at low revs. I'm not sure what gearbox could be used either, I could see him having to get a custom bellhousing made to use a suitable gearbox. Unless he's going to use a sequential box for around £4k.

In news: snipped-for-privacy@news.individual.net, Elder wittered on forthwith;

I drive the last properly built VW... it's in my sig ;-)

Prague airport has a *huge* fleet of new shape Passats outside as taxis all with "Fix price" stickers on the doors, whereas all the local cabbies drive Octavias.

Google for "Lotus Esthi" - there's not much info out there.

Company went allready broke twice.

Tom De Moor

Shame, as they made a stupidly fast elise. Stick with supercharged toyota / honda engines then!