My collection (Ur-Quattro, Elise, X5 and M12)
Discussion
Just found these forums (after searching for Noble M12 in google), so thought people might like to see my collection.
In no particular order....
Original Ur-Quattro - totally as built - no mods - still goes like stink with mass turbo lag (wait until 3K then hang on) and great fun
www.chipmunk.org.uk/quattro/
Lotus Elise - still brings a big smile to my face every time I run one around the twisty bits on the way to Brighton - and managed to take it to Scotland for 2 weeks
www.chipmunk.org.uk/lotus/
X5 - 3.0i - lovely "point and sleep" machine - travelled down to the South of France via Mont Blanc and Northern Italy autoroute and kept up very well with all sort of faster machines round the twisty bits
www.lotus-elise.org.uk/x5-elise/
And finally...
My new baby - Noble M12 - delivery in 6 days and counting
www.lotus-elise.org.uk/J%27sm12/
One day I'll get around to putting a decent web site together to hold them all....
Joust
In no particular order....
Original Ur-Quattro - totally as built - no mods - still goes like stink with mass turbo lag (wait until 3K then hang on) and great fun
www.chipmunk.org.uk/quattro/
Lotus Elise - still brings a big smile to my face every time I run one around the twisty bits on the way to Brighton - and managed to take it to Scotland for 2 weeks
www.chipmunk.org.uk/lotus/
X5 - 3.0i - lovely "point and sleep" machine - travelled down to the South of France via Mont Blanc and Northern Italy autoroute and kept up very well with all sort of faster machines round the twisty bits
www.lotus-elise.org.uk/x5-elise/
And finally...
My new baby - Noble M12 - delivery in 6 days and counting
www.lotus-elise.org.uk/J%27sm12/
One day I'll get around to putting a decent web site together to hold them all....
Joust
Thanks - this seems to be a very friendly set of people on here - a bit of a change from some of the other BBS's.
I chose the Noble primarily because I wanted a step up from the elise - but wasn't prepared to sacrifice the telepathic link between hands and tyres that the elise has.
I would have bought a Esprit - but I just couldn't find the one I wanted (a Sport 350) at a sensible price, and with my (sadly departed) brother owning three of them I know what the problems are with them.
Also - I just can't forgive Lotus management for cancelling the M250. Although I didn't like the look of the car much - it was a sign of Lotus finally making progress. To cancel it and just play "what jelly mould can we use today to change the esprit's shape" to keep the cash rolling in is just not the correct way to run a business.
To that end - I just can't bring myself to support the current Lotus management, and so felt supporting another british manufacturer was the correct thing to do (even if half of it is built in SA - but then most of my friends come from that way!)
Also, what really really swung it for me was the dealer. Having used Bell & Colvill for 3 years, I since went back to them, having spent over list on an elise 3 years ago, given them all the servicing, *and* given them a £2800 insurance job, and then they turn around and offer me £12,250 on my elise when they have the same car for over £15,000 on their forcourt.
Given I started with saying that I wanted to swap the elise for a 340R (I really don't like the MKII styling - it looks like a 10 year old that reads max power did it), after they gave me such a crap deal, I didn't even ask them about an esprit.
In comparison, the deal that Mole Valley did for me was astounding, and they really make you feel that they want your business. The whole experience is how I feel the company I work for (albeit in a different field) works, namely that the customer comes first, and if you do that, profits will just naturally come.
I can only recommend that people try the difference themselves - I personally can't see B&C getting another penny from me.
To say that the whole B&C event wound me up was the understatement of the year. I hadn't fully finaliased the deal on the M12, but after being at B&C, I drove straight back to Mole Valley and completed the deal there and then.
Oh - one other thing - I nearly forgot - I had the biggest grin in the world after my test drive
.
As for other "exoitca" - here's my list of what I compared with the M12
F355 - £20k more, and you just know you'll be landed with a £5k service bill at some point... My cashflow just doesn't allow that sort of thing to happen.
Porsche Boxster S - can't move for them around where I work (West End and City) - too common.
911 convertible - Not much more than a boxster for 30k more - what a rip off! They even look the same!
Aston Martin - Into second hand and scary bills for the money I could afford.
Esprit - can't quite bring myself to buy something that is 20 years old design - I already have one of them (the Quattro)
and...
Well - that is about it... Having wandered around the Canary Wharf expo, for the £50k ish that I could spend, the Noble was the only thing that actually caught my eye and made me say yes. There was a couple of others - but they were in the 150-300k bracket....
All in all, my favourite still is the Quattro in some sense - I can't believe how fast and sorted it is today, and it's 20 years old. What it must have felt like when it was new and being driven for the first time I can only imagine.
Joust
I chose the Noble primarily because I wanted a step up from the elise - but wasn't prepared to sacrifice the telepathic link between hands and tyres that the elise has.
I would have bought a Esprit - but I just couldn't find the one I wanted (a Sport 350) at a sensible price, and with my (sadly departed) brother owning three of them I know what the problems are with them.
Also - I just can't forgive Lotus management for cancelling the M250. Although I didn't like the look of the car much - it was a sign of Lotus finally making progress. To cancel it and just play "what jelly mould can we use today to change the esprit's shape" to keep the cash rolling in is just not the correct way to run a business.
To that end - I just can't bring myself to support the current Lotus management, and so felt supporting another british manufacturer was the correct thing to do (even if half of it is built in SA - but then most of my friends come from that way!)
Also, what really really swung it for me was the dealer. Having used Bell & Colvill for 3 years, I since went back to them, having spent over list on an elise 3 years ago, given them all the servicing, *and* given them a £2800 insurance job, and then they turn around and offer me £12,250 on my elise when they have the same car for over £15,000 on their forcourt.
Given I started with saying that I wanted to swap the elise for a 340R (I really don't like the MKII styling - it looks like a 10 year old that reads max power did it), after they gave me such a crap deal, I didn't even ask them about an esprit.
In comparison, the deal that Mole Valley did for me was astounding, and they really make you feel that they want your business. The whole experience is how I feel the company I work for (albeit in a different field) works, namely that the customer comes first, and if you do that, profits will just naturally come.
I can only recommend that people try the difference themselves - I personally can't see B&C getting another penny from me.
To say that the whole B&C event wound me up was the understatement of the year. I hadn't fully finaliased the deal on the M12, but after being at B&C, I drove straight back to Mole Valley and completed the deal there and then.
Oh - one other thing - I nearly forgot - I had the biggest grin in the world after my test drive
. As for other "exoitca" - here's my list of what I compared with the M12
F355 - £20k more, and you just know you'll be landed with a £5k service bill at some point... My cashflow just doesn't allow that sort of thing to happen.
Porsche Boxster S - can't move for them around where I work (West End and City) - too common.
911 convertible - Not much more than a boxster for 30k more - what a rip off! They even look the same!
Aston Martin - Into second hand and scary bills for the money I could afford.
Esprit - can't quite bring myself to buy something that is 20 years old design - I already have one of them (the Quattro)
and...
Well - that is about it... Having wandered around the Canary Wharf expo, for the £50k ish that I could spend, the Noble was the only thing that actually caught my eye and made me say yes. There was a couple of others - but they were in the 150-300k bracket....
All in all, my favourite still is the Quattro in some sense - I can't believe how fast and sorted it is today, and it's 20 years old. What it must have felt like when it was new and being driven for the first time I can only imagine.
Joust
You can't compare really.
Depends what you mean by *everyday*. If your job everyday is to lug around large items, then the elise won't cut it. If you just mean going to/from work then the elise is fine *if* you are able to get in/out easily with the roof on.
As far as handling and performance goes - again they are different. There is no "grunt" at 90-100 with the elise if you put your foot down, and there is no press, wait and launch that you get with the quattro.
Gears will get used more - but with a gearbox like the elises (compared to the clunky Quattro one) that doesn't matter.
Handling is just plain different, and whilst the quattro doesn't notice if it's raining, the elise certainly does!
If you do a test make sure you try the difference between a standard and a 135/160bph, and also get in and out a few times with the roof on and off - it makes a big difference.
If I had to choose, and only had one car, I think for me the Elise would get it due to it's fantastic B road capability, and I would put up with the long journey stuff just for the entertainment that you get down the twisty stuff.
If your brave (or stupid like me) you can take an Elise all the way to scotland with just 4 stops - but your bum will be sore at the end of it!
Joust
Depends what you mean by *everyday*. If your job everyday is to lug around large items, then the elise won't cut it. If you just mean going to/from work then the elise is fine *if* you are able to get in/out easily with the roof on.
As far as handling and performance goes - again they are different. There is no "grunt" at 90-100 with the elise if you put your foot down, and there is no press, wait and launch that you get with the quattro.
Gears will get used more - but with a gearbox like the elises (compared to the clunky Quattro one) that doesn't matter.
Handling is just plain different, and whilst the quattro doesn't notice if it's raining, the elise certainly does!
If you do a test make sure you try the difference between a standard and a 135/160bph, and also get in and out a few times with the roof on and off - it makes a big difference.
If I had to choose, and only had one car, I think for me the Elise would get it due to it's fantastic B road capability, and I would put up with the long journey stuff just for the entertainment that you get down the twisty stuff.
If your brave (or stupid like me) you can take an Elise all the way to scotland with just 4 stops - but your bum will be sore at the end of it!
Joust
Sorry you feel that way M@H, but as I explained I was new to this lot and just thought people might be interested in what I have amased over *9* years of collecting motors given that the forum is call "Reader's Cars".... Err - if that's not to post what you have - what is it for then?
Some people get married and have kids, some people buy big houses, some people blow it all on fancy holidays - I personally happen to spend most of my money on cars. If you divide the total cost by the 9 years, it's actually cost less than the typical family spends on one Ford repmobile per year.......
The Quattro was paid off 9 years ago, cost me £9k then, and the only cost now is the £2k or so of repairs I pay for it. Looking at your profile - your TVR cost(s) nearly that - so your sarcastic comment is a bit way off the mark.
With regards to the others, the Elise was bought with a single windfall that came my way, the X5 has been bought as the main car by over the years uptrading cars successfully, and the M12 costs a whole lot less per month on finance than you may imagine, but given I worked my butt off for the last 5 years I felt I deserved it.
Given you own a large collection yourself I sorry if you think that I am larging it's value - I would have thought people on a BBS such as this would be interested in the cars themselves, and the fact that I run a 20 year old classic would have shown my interest was in the engineering and style, not the plain value.
Perhaps I'll just go away, get back into my box, and drive my cars - obviously this isn't a place where people appreciate the very thing the web site is about.
Joust
>> Edited by joust on Tuesday 3rd September 13:16
>> Edited by joust on Tuesday 3rd September 13:19
Some people get married and have kids, some people buy big houses, some people blow it all on fancy holidays - I personally happen to spend most of my money on cars. If you divide the total cost by the 9 years, it's actually cost less than the typical family spends on one Ford repmobile per year.......
The Quattro was paid off 9 years ago, cost me £9k then, and the only cost now is the £2k or so of repairs I pay for it. Looking at your profile - your TVR cost(s) nearly that - so your sarcastic comment is a bit way off the mark.
With regards to the others, the Elise was bought with a single windfall that came my way, the X5 has been bought as the main car by over the years uptrading cars successfully, and the M12 costs a whole lot less per month on finance than you may imagine, but given I worked my butt off for the last 5 years I felt I deserved it.
Given you own a large collection yourself I sorry if you think that I am larging it's value - I would have thought people on a BBS such as this would be interested in the cars themselves, and the fact that I run a 20 year old classic would have shown my interest was in the engineering and style, not the plain value.
Perhaps I'll just go away, get back into my box, and drive my cars - obviously this isn't a place where people appreciate the very thing the web site is about.
Joust
>> Edited by joust on Tuesday 3rd September 13:16
>> Edited by joust on Tuesday 3rd September 13:19
today shall we? 
Cool - so cool that the water on my desk has just fozen.
Have no fear - the last paragraph was me getting my sarcastic hat on to jibe Matt raising to the bait (
), and as such shouldn't be taken seriously.
I'd love to fill you in on the details - but there is a slight problem with a mad finance company to now convince that there really can be two significant car finances at the same house in different names *sigh*.
Why can't people work out that DINKs (note - no Y) just want to buy cars
J
Have no fear - the last paragraph was me getting my sarcastic hat on to jibe Matt raising to the bait (
), and as such shouldn't be taken seriously. I'd love to fill you in on the details - but there is a slight problem with a mad finance company to now convince that there really can be two significant car finances at the same house in different names *sigh*.
Why can't people work out that DINKs (note - no Y) just want to buy cars
J
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