Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Interesting on another thread re cars owned that quite a few have owned other cars that I refer to as ?raw? sport cars , such as caterhams. I shared a few I have owned, but rather than take that thread further off topic I thought I would start this thread.

I?ve owned a selection of non standard sport cars , so I?ll start with the caterham route. Loved these cars and closest I?ve found to Lotus in terms of true feedback on the road . Only had the k series ranging from 140bhp to 220 bhp. Sweet spot for our public roads I reckon is 180bhp, making you work the engine but without silly speeds.





So please share details of cars you?ve owned that you think tick this box. Can?t wait to see what is listed.

I've had nothing as raw as that. Only thing that came close was my E46 M3 CSL. Made the best noise of any car I've owned, but that gearbox made me sell it. The balance was perfect, and handling up there with my Exige. Felt large though.

Westfield with 2.0L Duratec. 210 hp, but engine is currently out of the car for upgrades. Looking for 225-230 hp. The Elan is downright civilized by comparison.




I also have a '91 Miata set up for the track, but now used as my commuter car. Flyin Miata suspension, brakes, and chassis stiffeners, Sparco seats, Schroth harness, roll bar, and a bolt on hardtop that's never been off in the 8 years I've owned it. The engine is stock with 116hp; can you say momentum car? The '95 993 C2 is the cruiser in the garage. Some suspension mods, but nothing extreme.

-John

Do love a 993. Please do share a photo

DJW, embarrassing to admit, but despite the fact I've owned the car for over 12 years, I only have 2 photos of it, and only 1 shows it at the current ride height. Even that one places it in the background of a Westfield photo, so the quality is marginal. Here's a cropped version.



-John

Well, it's pretty raw to me anyway. Crossle 25F. I'm buying this photo...

Robin Hood Project 2B DOHC Luxe. A fat arsed 7 replica based on Sierra running gear.





Do the Triumph Spitfire and Austin Healey Sprite count? Slow, but quite raw. I've had 4 spitfires in my time and nearly bought another one until the Plus 2 came along.

My old TR2, not fast, handled like a steam roller and needed ? of a mile to stop (drum brakes) but as raw as they come

Must admit my 'passion' has gone more with two wheels than four and there's been a whole collection of oddball (and a few mainstream) motorcycles. Not all super fast but all with a kind of je ne sais quoi.

For example, this one, an early Kawasaki H1 500, the original 'widowmaker' :



Or this one, a Honda CBX1000/6, a bike with far and away the best sounding engine, bike or car, I've ever heard:



And then my travel bikes:

Firstly my Honda XR600 (in the Sahara):



Then a real oddball, a CCM 604, another 600 single (complete with a few parts from CCM's late 90's Paris - Dakar bikes):



And, going from the 'sublime' to the ridiculous, a little 70's Suzuki 125 that I saved from a skip and have been all over Europe on. This picture from Jan 18 when I tried to get to Africa on it:



Then my Honda GoldWing, kept and used in the US. This picture from a campsite (ground) in Santa Fe, NM:



And my next project, back to Africa next summer on this 1970 250 Yamaha:

I had an Elva Courier for many years. Not as nice as the Elan, but it felt like it was going 100 mph.

My first car was an Austin Seven special. No weather protection, skinny tyres. Basic, raw.

GT40 replica. Unfortunately had no aircon so was like a greenhouse as soon as sun came out. The reverse layout of gears was also interesting

A looong time ago I built this Dutton Phaeton . Eventually ended up racing it in the 750 MC kit car series with a 1700 twincam motor .

It says Lotus buy made by another company. This is as ?raw? as it gets. No shocks and high g force in the corners.



My past Porsche?s don?t qualify as ?raw?

It's not raw as in wind-in-your-hair raw, but with the quad cam 3.0 litre V6 engine behind the seats and a straight-through exhaust with no Cats, the Clio V6 makes all the right noises, and goes a bit!

Concept developed by Renault as a one make race series to precede the F1 races in Europe in the early 2000s, TWR in Oxford were contracted to develop the road going version and built the first series in Sweden. But then they went into liquidation, brought down by their Arrows F1 Team, and the second series, of which this is one, was built in the old RenaultSport Matra factory.

Only a few hundred were made, as each one cost over ?100k to build, but they could only be sold at the 'premium' sporty Renault hatch price of ?30k. On the upside for Renault, many thousands of the more humble Clio were sold as a result of the car's race series, so it was regarded as a marketing success.

It has re-built my faith in modern cars being fun machines, although I doubt we will see it's like again.

Mark