The damn car ran perfectly all weekend, and I actually went a few places.

I was struck by three things while I drove around the suburbs.

First, people still stare at it, talk to me about it, and take cell phone pictures of it. From the guy at a gas station with the SCCA course Marshall stickers all over his van, to random teens on the interstate, it still captures people. I think I could live without that.

Second, the ride quality is much more supple than our VW Tiguan. Lotus really is magical over bumps. How they do grip AND ride compliance is one of the great mysteries of life… (Thanks Roger…)

Lastly, the ruthless way this car puts speed on still catches me off guard. It is next to violent, and extremely seductive. I suppose it’s elemental that a passenger riding in a supercar should be uncomfortable under full throttle, and this beast qualifies.

I am finishing up the odd jobs necessary to complete its recommissioning. Then I am hoping for that golden period where I get to enjoy it for a while.

I haven’t heard from the prospective buyer. I suspect he was using my car as leverage to buy another one. I honestly don’t know how I feel about that, but the chorus of people telling me NOT to sell it is pretty large, including, astonishingly, Nancy…

Dave the Field Engineer was confound by that one. He ask me to rush her to the emergency room to be tested for delirium, and I myself don’t think she could believe the words blowing through her teeth, but there it is.

Anyway, more to follow…

A funny thing happened this weekend. The Esprit ran perfectly. No codes. No temp. No flat battery. When they are working, they really are sublime.

It was awkward.

My friend T.J. has a buyer for it. Apparently some brave soul was looking at another car and demurred. My aggravation has turned to fatigue and its being considered.

The decision to let it go is massive.

Bizarrely, the one person most against selling it is Nancy. Ether this is brilliant reverse psychology, because I know in her eyes the car is completely unloved, or she remembers the incessant whinging from the last time I was Esprit-less.

I need to wash it in order to take pictures. If nothing falls off it will be tough to let it go. I’ve given myself the afternoon to boil.

Watch this space.

Electricity-gate seems to be well sorted. I had the battery tested and it had a blown cell. It literally boiled out the side. Even though the nitwit at pep boys could see that, she still made me have it tested. It scored worse than I did in high school geometry (that was time I will never get back anyway…). Battery exchanged. Once replaced, I tested the volts for a few days and all is good with the charging system.

Is never easy. on the test drive, I had a fault code. The dreaded P1460, which is the relay for the ac motor. I replaced that, and I still had the MIL come on, so I went crying to T.J. Waszak who, acting partly as a tech, and partly as my Lotus shrink, walked me through the “dummies guide to the ac circuit”. It was a fuse. Score one for the power probe. Replaced. then I went on a short hop to check. Ac blasting. No code. Fantastic.

Do short drives to check repairs count as summer driving miles?

Anyway, T.J. Is a god among men for having the patience to work me through that one. If you have a chance to work with him, do it. He really is fantastic.

I was euphoric. the car was really doing its thing, and i envisioned a summer full of driving, until I noticed the temp gauge creeping…

Now, let me be clear as a glass of gin about this, I would NEVER let a v-8 overheat. Ever. I have seen how that movie ends. I was close to, CLOSE, to 110 and waiting for the fans to pull me back down.

Since I JUST replaced coolant hoses, my suspicion is the crappy little plastic line from the top tank to the spare in the wheel well. I’ll proof that tonight. I’m not so concerned about the radiator since I intend to replace it anyway.

My wife, and chief critic Nancy, asked me how it was going, and I told her it was great. When she was done raining on me for bullshitting her, and digested the facts, she told me that the cars name was “Christine”, after the car in the Stephen King book.

I can tell that I am making progress with her because that’s actually more funny than vicious. In another 30 or so years, she may actually agree to ride in it again.

The funny thing is even though it has been kind of a problem child, I have driven it more to this point in the year than I would have driven the Exige.

Le chemin de la béatitude est longue…

The web is a funny place for Lotus. Since its such a small manufacturer, the number of people that spent time developing a presence for them is negligible. Since the Esprit has been out of production for some time, the majority of fan sites devoted to it are antiquated.

Take Karl-Franz Marquez site: http://www.espritfactfile.com
It hasn’t been updated since 2009, however, it does a generally good job of describing the buying and owning process in the early part of the decade. It also has a cute “code of ethics” for exotic car owners which is fine if you are into that kind of thing. He spent some time on it back in the day, but it’s more of a time capsule at this point.

Another one that makes me chuckle is: http://www.metalasylum.com/evilyn/main.html

That one has a story about a 112 day stretch in the pokey for speeding, a car with a name, and a heavy metal soundtrack. Not really updated in 7 years, though.

There are also a number of sites documenting people taking a number of ruined cars and combining them into one running one. It would be mildly disturbing to realize that is where your car came from, but it’s really none of my business, and I sure as hell can’t cast stones at “problem child” Esprits, can I?

The car clubs, SELOC, Lotus Limited, Lotus Corps, etc all have sites too, and they do a functionally good job of managing club affairs online.

Www.lotusespritworld.com is really the monster site for Esprits. It aggregates owners sites, archives press coverage, has a useful classifieds section, technical section, buying and operating section, and generally tries to stay updated. I particularly appreciate the dialog they have with the factory about cross referencing out of production parts. (And their support of this blog…)

The two main online forums I tend to visit (mostly as a stalker these days) are the yahoo group “turbo esprit” which has been around forever, and lotustalk.com which was founded by a pretty cool guy named Randy Chase (massively quick autocrosser too). Culturally the difference between the two couldn’t be more stark. For instance, a cursory scan of posts on the yahoo list reveals these topics:

“New speedo cable, how do you remove the old one”
“Poor running 89se, code 65 help”
“Speed bleeder size for v8 Esprit, AP brakes”
Or, “does anyone know this car” (good one, that)

On lotustalk, you find stuff like:

“What mods would u get it u win powerball.”
“Anyone wear earplugs while driving?”
“Elise versus Evora, which turns heads more?”
Or my favorite, “OMG friend wretched my week old Lotus”

I think that kind of speaks to the type of guy that buys an Esprit or an Elise at this point. However, as a matter of course, there are a list of things that identify you as a tugger there too.

If your car has a huge stereo, you are a tugger. If it has a name that is a made up word, you are a tugger. If your car has neon, or graphics, you are a tugger. Lamborghini style doors too. Huge rims, Supplemental body work, racing seats and harnesses, (unless you actually track the car), unnecessary gauge clusters, and snarky vanity plates all qualify too.

Sadly the kind of person that believes they can actually improve on the work Lotus Cars does is also the kind who makes web sites about it. The people that work on them and drive them are just not that interested. So it’s kind of skewed.

And then there’s me. I’ll leave it to you to decide where I fit.