One year ago I made the questionable decision to get rid of a perfectly good S2000 for something far less practical than I could imagine. If you’ve followed along to this point it should be abundantly clear my attention span with cars has cost me a bit of money over the years. The Miata lasted 4 1/2 years, which was largely the result of my financial situation at the time, and everything since has been short-lived.

So one year in, how has the car fared? Remarkably well, if I’m honest. It has only failed to start due to a dying battery that I was completely aware of and had a brief stint in the middle of summer with no air conditioning. When the weather turned cold this past fall, if you can call 50 degrees cold, the ECU developed a stumbling idle and intermittent throttle issue before the engine has warmed but it was nothing that I couldn’t learn how to drive around. Otherwise, it has started when I wanted and returned no less than 29mpg in the process. It is known that some of the cars that leave the Lotus factory have a few more squeaks and rattles than others and thankfully mine seemed well sorted when I picked it up last year. I have asked a lot of the car in regards to the daily driving and it has not let me down. I cannot count the extra miles I’ve walked from parking in the very back of every parking lot but a fiberglass body and paranoia will do that to you.

It’s an odd feeling to have the money (and usually, the appetite) for a better, faster car and finding yourself absolutely content with the car as it sits. Despite the Porsche 997 GT3 retaining a fair bit of value, it is now easily within reach and yet I’m not seriously tempted to pursue the notion. I certainly can’t make myself any promises of keeping the car for a number of years but it is refreshing to still find the car as interesting as the day I bought it.

I always told myself I would never add forced induction to my daily driver and certainly never to a car to which I was still making payments. Thanks in part to a treacherous travel schedule that included an untold number of overtime hours and a slightly unfavorable interest rate I was able to pay the car off within eight months, a fact in which I am most proud. The other rule I have forced upon myself will be coming to fruition soon.

The Elise has served its daily driver duties well and I quite enjoyed the ability to drive it year-round. As I have begun to find my way in this city, I find myself subjected to the rigors of the real world. The world ten miles from my house include work, grocery stores and friends all connected by well-kept roads and overly large parking lots to accommodate my paranoia. The same cannot be said for life outside this range. Streets flood, parking lots at clubs are small and the car knows not subtlety but only screaming at the top of its lungs for attention. It certainly has its place and I won’t pretend to regret the compliments I receive but it is simply not a car that should be subjected to SUVs, minivans, and the people that drive them. Soon it will be replaced with what I carefully refer to as a beater. I have never shopped for a car that had even a bit of practicality and always knew with great focus what I wanted from a driving experience. Finding a suitable car with four seats and a trunk in my self-imposed price range proved to be quite difficult. My mind changes almost daily so I won’t attempt to suggest I have made a decision but there is a model in mind and hopefully in the next few weeks it will take over “real life” duties and the Elise relegated to the occasional drive to work or weekend fun.

It’s a bit sad in some ways but I’ve grown too fond of the car and I’d rather save the miles for something a bit more mundane. Unfortunately I will no longer be able to boast about my one and only daily driver but I occasionally have to remind myself that I didn’t buy the car to impress others, it’s just a common side effect. There is good news, however. Soon I will follow through with my plans to install a supercharger to the Elise. On the face of it, one might say it’s a bit foolish to spend a decent sum of money on a system that has not been experienced. But it can also be said that not much else about this car makes sense so why begin now?

The list of upgrades planned with surely be included (hopefully) in an update come this March. For now I have installed the BOE Silent Touch exhaust that eliminates the rear panel and features a single, rear-facing exhaust tip. The muffler itself is from Coast Fabrication and is meant to handle the increased power levels of Eaton’s TVS supercharger and can be rebuilt if tracked heavily. Due to the nature of the stock Lotus ECU, any power gains will be negated by the software pulling timing and adjusting air:fuel ratios. The main benefit, outside of the always-subjective sound quality increase, is the 24 pounds lost off the rear of the car. At ~$800 it is the cheapest way to drop weight from the car save for the incredibly heavy stock battery. With the Sport Package wheels and tires mounted and subwoofer removed the car should now weight in at ~1926lbs.

Included is just a collection of pictures gathered in the last three months. They include my work on the car, a Lotus owner’s meet I put together in November and a proper canyon run with the rotary club in San Bernardino.