John,
Club Lotus is definitely worth another look to re-evaluate your perception of it. Just flicking through the last 3 issues of the magazine I am struck by the amount of content for classic Lotus cars, it's at least 60 - 40 in our favour.
I attend a few of the big organised meetings during the year, Castle Combe trackday and of course Donington for the annual show with maybe one or two other events. The track day is enormous fun and has old and new attending including a very good showing from HLR, and you don't even have to pay if you don't want to hurl your pride and joy around the track, as it's free to spectatators and anyone driving there in a Lotus of any type will be welcome (even Cortinas
), it's fascinating to see that the Elise's and maybe a few Exige's are pretty equal to well driven and well set up Elan's and everyone is friendly and genuinely interested in the older cars, even modified one's like mine. The carpark at Donington looked like a 1960's/1970's used car lot for specialist sports cars and the at least 60% of the stalls and displays inside were classic orientated.
Tim, Alex and a few noteworthy others are working hard to get the dedicated Elan section of the club underway, (sorry if I forget to mention people by name I'm going by memory here).
You get a lot for the ?30 a year, including the aforementioned magazine, a proper insurance company recognized valuation service for your car, help with the DVLA who also recognise Club Lotus as the authority on issues such as build date,( if Tim & CL say your car was built pre 1973, thats it no argument about getting road tax free status irrespective of when the car was first registered), there are also the normal club fringe benefits such as 10% off Demon Tweeks and a range of other suppliers and services.
THATS IT ADVERT OVER>>>>>> CAN I HAVE MY COMMISSION NOW MR MORGAN?>>>>>>>