My brother is 6'1" and said that a two hour drive was as much as he could stand. That said, I am also 5'9" and about 165 and the Miata fits perfectly. It's interesting driving the MINI and the Miata back to back. The MINI has a much more upright seating position where as the Miata, you are in a more reclined position. The dead peddle on the Miata is nearly inline with the clutch peddle. There is more steering feel in the MINI but more feel from the drive train and chassis in the Miata. What you can't feel through the steering wheel in the Miata, you can thought the rest of the chassis. It is very communicative. The MINI does the same thing, just in a different way. The Miata, it's more of a whole body experience where the MINI seems to notify you through certain parts of your body almost on part at a time - maybe it will start with the hands, then the hips or or the other way around or different parts altogether. I am not sure which is actually better. One way may not be better than the other. FWD is very different than RWD. I still love driving the MINI though.

 

I went through so much trouble getting this Lotus. There were countless obstacles from the flight down to LA, the unexpected roll cage missing parts, and then the car carrier shipping from LA to Portland. The carrier did not arrive as scheduled yesterday when we have the unseasonably mild and dry day, because of their inability to pick up another car. Today is one continuous downpour here, and they made it at dusk during the rush hour traffic, and in the rain so very difficult to perform receive inspection. I have to go to a business park where they could unload it, and drove it home a few blocks, in the rain.

I will never want to drive a Lotus on the road as the rear and side visibility is worst than a Ferrari or Lamborghini. The rain and darkness make it that much worst. I feel much more comfortable maneuvering the Sprinter motorhome over the Lotus, and especially with parallel parking or backing up.


my Lotus is the first stop for this trip which ends at the Canadian border, according to the driver











it looks much better in person than in photo



I manage to fit the Lotus and the Mini onto the driveway, though a very tight fit

 

Series 1 and 2 Exiges are based on the Elise platform and is a bit smaller and lighter than my Series 3. Hence will be a tighter fit but I am sure if you are under 6' and lean you are just fine. I heard that those with long torso could be challenge with headroom with helmet. I have plenty of headroom in the Series 3.

I actually think the Elise based Exiges is nicer looking and better proportioned. I may be fancy to find one as a nice sunday driver for streets and the twisties.

 

 

In comparison the Exige is really quite large and has great visibility to the rear and sides....





I thought that the idea was that in the Lotus (Ferrari, Lambo, etc) you will be faster than everyone else so you don’t have to look behind or to the side...

 

I had the opportunity to crawl in and out of an Elise. If that roll cage had been there, I would not have made it in. Out is a little easier, so long as you are not worried about being laughed at-you just come out head first, walking your upper body on your hands, dragging your legs along behind you.

I would not recommend signing up for any of those races where the driver has to run to the car at the start. You will get lapped on the start line.

 

"I will never want to drive a Lotus on the road as the rear and side visibility is worst"

You'll need a pair of these to remind you of what you are driving and what everyone else is doing.

 

One thing that I learnt very quickly riding scooters in Thailand and Taiwan is you want to have one with more HP. This allows you to get ahead of the pack when the lights turn green, so you less likely to end in a pileup riding in a crowded pack. There is perils if you are the fastest one ahead of others, such as getting T-boned by cars that run the red light. I always try to be 2nd, or 3rd or 4th behind the rabbit. Taiwanese car drivers are very good in not killing the riders like swing open their door of their "parked" car. I never want to ride next to a truck or bus for any duration of time. I minimize my time next to one by accelerate pass it as fast and as safe the situation permits. It is no different in driving in the US really. I would often downshift one gear to accelerate pass a semi quickly rather than spending time slowly passing one next lane to me.

 

It's been a little while since I envied seeing this Exige in Taiwan. It was the end of October last year that I spotted it in Taipei. At the time I knew very little about the evolution of the series but it looks like a Cup 410 to me. In retrospect knowing what I now know it looks more like a Cup 350 or 360 very similar to mine, but with a few aftermarket upgrades including the big wing and may be a carbon hatch cover in lieu of the factory glass window that is useless for rear view visibility.



My envy then was I only knew that the only way to get one into this country is to order it directly from Lotus and the car must come with a manufacturer's certificate that it is for off road uses only. This likely means there is none in this country. It would turn out there are about 16 in total imported into the US.

 

Desire is beginning to warm up to the idea of life in the countries. She has been putting in globs of miles scouting locations, and the tiny diameter wheels spin up the odometer counts in a hurry.



And being a city girl she wonders what are these things.



She tried to blend in as a small town girl.

 

Desire - they are called “windshield bait”. As cute as they are, they are like sirens of lore. Stay away from them as best you can...

Nice that someone left a barbecue out so they can cook...

 

I agree with Eddie-I hope you gave her a good talking to about those vicious creatures that will ambush her.

 

I wholeheartedly agree that Bambi is not as cute as Walt Disney makes it to be. Even in death they can still kill you on the road. I have first hand experience but I am fortunate to live to tell the story.

A few years ago I was on the way back from Eastern end of the Gorge after a few days of silent sport on the river. It was night time in Desire's mothership the Westfalia Sprinter based motorhome travelling on the two lane highway SR-14 on the Washington side. I was in cruise control at 55 mph on a straight section. All of a sudden I saw a dead deer carcass in the middle of my Westbound lane. It was a big deer road killed that must had been hit by a semi tractor trailer. It was too late to brake to avoid hitting it as it would do immense damage to the Sprinter underside. As there was no traffic nearby I steer to the opposite lane to avoid the collision. What happened next took my breath away for a few seconds. The top heavy motorhome started to fishtail and is the most scary situation that I found myself in. There are deep ditches on both side of the highway, and the motorhome has slow steering so recovering from fishtailing is very unlikely.

What cause the fishtailing was not because of my over aggressive steering input to avoid the collision. It was the massive amount of wet blood on the road surface which was a slick as spilled motor oil. I had no idea how I managed to recovered from the fishtailing and not over or under correcting the steering. Until this day, I cannot tell you if there was anything I could had done better that night. If the motorhome went into the ditch it would had rolled for sure and it would definitely be totalled. And yes, I did tap the brake to take it off cruise control before taking the steering evading action, with as little steering input as needed.

Given a choice I always avoid 2 lane highways, especially at night.

 

A few photos of the Exige Cup.


so the driver side has 6-point harness but the passenger side has 4-point which makes sense; the seats are true carbon fiber rather than carbon fiber reinforced plastic of sort, and they don't even have sliding adjustments



this is the first car I own with detachable steering wheel; the ingress and egress is so difficult with this car is due to the high sills and low seats



the factory roll cage is well constructed



a diagonal brace on roof



minimalistic pedals and the central fire suppression system; note also the horizontal bar of the cage blocking the access to the air and ventilation control on the dash



to verify the immobilizer as well, the keyless access, and the security alarm has been stripped out to save a few ounces, I made an improvised Faraday shield for the key fob

 

Beautiful, beautiful car. Desire's gonna be hella pissed at you. Like, if she were a dog, she'd take a big runny crap on your pillow.

 

Thanks. Desire has a long list of upgrades to be installed this coming season. She have been given the most gifts.

 

You're gonna need a longer trailer, a new tow rig to pull a 2 car trailer... and a driver to keep both cars running at the track. I don't live far away.

 

To me Tacoma quite a drive, but I am so spoiled that everyday places are within 15 miles. It would be a huge adjustment to move out to the countries. Desire has been piling on alarming number of miles in recent weeks as the search intensified.

If you want to drive at ORP club day I can sponsor you for one day. There is the regular track fee of $250 for all you can eat driving. Also there is no shortage of instructors that will gladly ride with you should you desire or need.

 

I appreciate the offer I was just offering to keep one of your multiple track cars busy so they didn't get lonely/jealous.

I've been hesitant to try track events... My ego is afraid to learn how poor my skills really are, and my OCD makes me very susceptible to getting infected by various viruses. The mod bug is already kicking my *** and wallet. The adrenaline rush that comes with track bug infestation might be the end of me. 🤣

For now I'll just continue to live vicariously through your posts, and pretend I'm fast in the mountains where no one is looking.

 

As we got to be more familiar with what it's like living and commuting in the countries we begin to open the imaginations. What was previously intimidating becomes the exposition of the unfamiliar and new experience. We become more receptive of properties that we wouldn't consider before. One exciting part is for the first time I would be able to have the workshop space that I desire. This including works on all aspect of fabrications and repairs, and of course a place for a decent car lift.


Desire in the deer country and she wants to make friends



I really like this horse ranch that has huge barns

 

The horse ranch would be good for the installation of a short road course track. Hey, why not, as long as I’m spending your money...

 

I am sick and tired the ***** valve stems that most tire places now use. Taking opportunity of the winter down time I shopped for what looks to be decent aluminum ones but I am cheap so I go source them from the country of Coronavirus. I shopped on Aliexpress. The cost of each set is about half of what you can buy from Amazon or feaBay. The down side is you have to be very patient as it take longer than slow boat from China to get here, and it is via air. These took 1.5 month to arrive and you are forever wonder if they fell into some black hole and never to arrive.


shipped from China via ePocket



I bought three sets for Desire



I am sure these are not Rays















there are many different designs and this is one that I chose as there is nothing to fall off inside the wheel barrel, and that you can inspect it from the outside

 

We are on the same page. I have already joked about creating a Washington Raceway Park (WRP) as a direct rival to ORP.

If that fails I plan to buy a few badass dirtbikes and invite my friends over for hold my beer fun.

 

I had TPMS units put into my track wheels. When I noticed that they were rubber stems the tire shop assured me the rubber would be fine. Nope, lost 3 in one day at the track. I was afraid I wasn’t going to make it back home without being flatbedded. However, I found that I could wiggle them to get them to re-seal, which is how I finally got home. That HP tire pump more than paid for itself that day. I went back to the shop and had them get metal ones, which worked; so far.

Overall, this was a case of the good news is the TPMS works. The bad news is that the TPMS caused the leak...

BTW - Windex bubbles up nicely to fine tire leaks....

 

I have nothing against rubber valves. In fact before China starting to flood the market with corner-cutting valves I preferred the standard issued rubber ones. Soon I noticed that they are very flexible and difficult to use a press-on pressure gauge without leaking air. I checked the ones on my other vehicles that have not been replaced for over a decade and they are very firm. The reason for the flexibility is these ***** valve are constructed to save a tiny amount of rubber with by cheating on the wall thickness that you cannot see. The ***** HD ones that Discount Tire used on my Sprinter RV has a metal cladding to make them look HD but in fact are even worse as the rigid metal sleeve cause localized stress zone on the thin rubber cross section.

All too common that China made products have been cost-reduced beyond fit for application just to save $.50 on $1,000 of production cost.