Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

persiflage wrote:Personally I think the worlds gone mad . . .again.

I am with you on this one...

I blame the banks! In days gone by if you had a decent sum of money you'd built up over your life you'd stick it in a bank earning a reliable decent % return. These days its pretty difficult to get an account that pays any thing like a decent return. If you find something that beats inflation you've done extremely well. In most cases you're losing money (buying power wise) with money in the bank due to inflation being much higher than interest rates.

So people take their money and try to find other things they can do to get a better return. Common examples of this are stocks and property. Both of these are doing pretty well despite the craziness going on at the minute. Classic cars are just another place to put your money in the hope of them increasing in value and well at least you get something you can enjoy.

Stocks, property and classic cars all have a look of a bubble but I am not sure what could cause it to burst. The banks aren't suddenly going to start pay a decent exchange rate, as they learned they don't have to.

^THIS.

Plus there's just so much upward accumulation of wealth these days that the number of people who'll pay hugely for their dreams is only increasing, as is the amount that some of them will pay due to that increasing competition for the limited supply of old cars to make dreams come true. Sure, the world HAS gone mad...again, but it's still the old game of supply and demand- just played into madness.

Let's what difference this makes...

http://www.classiccarsmagazine.co.uk/may-2017-issue-more

... Exige V6 Cup..

There, done it....

Jim & Veg(ie)

Another F1 inspiration could be the McLaren of the same name - Gordon Murray is an elan fan - apparently!

Interesting comment about personal registrations and Elans, there are lots of personal plates on Ferraris, etc - are the owners more interested in making a statement or driving their toys?

Maybe a comparison of Elan vs the more "exotic" marques insurance mileage allowance would be interesting?

Might the increasing use of composites in modern expensive cars & an increasing focus on efficiency help values?

etc...

Ian

Gordon Murray certainly does like Elan

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/features/my-first-car-gordon-murray/

There was also an interesting one page article by him in Classic Car magazine which came out a couple of months ago where he praises the Elan. Seems he reckons the Elan in betters the McLaren F1!

From a page on the London Classic Car Show website quoting Gordon Murray http://www.thelondonclassiccarshow.co.uk/news/salute-to-the-greatest-car-of-the-20th-century..

When we started work on the F1 we benchmarked all the existing supercars from Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche and so on, as well as aspects of cars as varied as the contemporary Honda NSX and the 1960s Lotus Elan.

?The idea was to better the performance, vehicle dynamics, handling and ride comfort of all of them at the same as producing a car that could, genuinely, be used every day.

?We achieved it all? except perhaps the steering. The F1 gets very close but doesn?t quite better the purity of the Lotus Elan?s steering,? said Murray.

Says it all and he should know..


Carl

Good on Gordon for that!

I haven't driven a baby Elan, and have only driven my Plus 2 1/8 mile with really crapped-out bushings and ball-joints, but I've driven a few Esprits and Lotus definitely have the steering-thing figured out. My former Esprit had the most amazing steering I've ever met.