chris singleton

I've been giving serious consideration to buying an exige s for some time now.

The "s" is just ouf of budget with prices for 2006 cars hovering around £24k (although some dealers are still asking up to £27k!)

I've found a car that I can maybe scrape enough money together to buy, only problem is, it's the ex lotus demo car i.e. Clarkson and the Stig have beaten it up round the top gear track (as have no doubt numerous other journo's). The seller has also used it for several track days but you'd probably struggle to find one that hasn't seen a track, it is a road going track car after all.

Obviously the car has had a hard life, but........it's also been regularly serviced by lotus, 8 services in total in around 36k miles. The seller seems very genuine and says the car felt better/tighter than other low mileage cars he'd tried beforehand because lotus ensured everything was perfect with the car (as they didn't want it getting a bad review). Car has every optional extra and is in the right colour (white).

Would anyone entertain buying a car like this or would you steer well clear? Will be a weekend toy and track car for me so I'll probably only do 5k per annum.

I could wait another 6 months and hope prices fall another 2-3K but I'm impatient and would like something for the impending summer

Any opinions welcome

Chris

RyanSTI

iTrader: (1)

just have a sniff around on the forums, if your planning on tracking it i dont see a problem.

only reason i say check the forums, is there was an fq400 that clarky hard, and numerous other nobbers, and that had engine rebuilds engine fire etc etc However it had always been repaired by mitsy using oem parts.

pippyrips

Ryan makes a good point. Some say certain demo cars are even better than the production versions but personally, I would leave it and wait for a cherised private car.

StickyMicky

I can give you an insight into the press car thing, when i worked for Nissan building the new Primera, as one engine came around to my station a lot of the gaffers were hanging around for some reason, when i asked why, they told me that this one was a press demo car and its made to a much higher standard!

for example, the drive shafts i was just about to fit to the gear box were balanced to a RPM that was twice the "ok spec" of the cars the general public would get, its the same for pretty much every other component to cut down on vibrations and noise, as this car was put together on the line, every sections gaffers were around this model as it was all synched together, making sure everything was 200%

Just to make sure the car gets a better review.

you name it, and it was probably "uprated" (loose term but you know what i mean) just for this one car.

scoobysmiff

iTrader: (2)

I'd get it, if it was no good then Lotus wouldn't let it go on sale in the first place. I would have thought that they would put as much effort into this particular car as they could to make sure that it is liked by Clarkson etc, any bad press for Lotus would be very bad as they are such a small (relative) company and could not afford it.
It might have had a hard life so far but if it's built for it then imo it should be fine, Lotus are built for the track are they not, go for it and get an extended warranty lol

500

As above, I'd have it, if it was an ex press car it will have been very well maintained, get it bought!

Milamber

iTrader: (2)

Had a friend (Nevetas) who owned the GT3 RS that Stig took round the top gear track, he didn't have an issue with it

HankScorpio

Something that's been driven to it's limits by professional drivers (and probably mildy abused by journos), properly looked after and serviced (as said, lotus can't afford to chance poor reviews for niggles or unreliability), looked at after every lending out or something owned by a banker, driven once a month, ragged from cold and does the traffic light GP at nearly every junction?

You're not talking about a showroom demonstrator Astra the salesmen borrow and thrash all weekend.

If it was me, I'd take a serious look at it.

chris singleton

Thanks for the replies folks.

If the seller and I can agree a price then I'm definately going to take a look. He's arranging an MOT and hope to have a look maybe next weekend. Will keep you all posted

Deep Singh

I remember steve, out of interest what is he driving now?