i was thinking about going for a lotus and getting rid of the xfire... what do you guys think?

 

Is this even a question? 1 is a middle of the road ho-hum sports coupe and the other is a ***** to the wall sports car.

The Elise is a very hard car to daily drive but if both of these options are your 2nd car/weekend toy, there is absolutley no reason why you shouldn't be all over the Elise.

 

Well considering the lotus cost $50k, and the crossfire has absolutely no resale value, it's just not worth selling the crossfire for $15k only to buy a lotus that hasn't got a radio, interior or any comfortable means of street suspension, oh and the lotus only has like 180 hp, though it only weighs in at 1,900 lbs. IMO it's just not a usable car unless you live near some curvy roads or near a race track.

Since I live in LA, it would only end up a hangar queen, because the traffic sucks here, and the cops just have this magnetic attraction to sports cars, and third there really isn't anywhere to drive it anymore. If I go up to the canyons, the place is loaded with cops and jerk off drivers. Personally I would put $50k down on a new Robinson helicopter and start working on a chopper rating. Hey it's only $300k, why f around with sports cars?

 

you might as well keep the crossfire for a grocery getter. my crossfire was worth less than half my Z.

 

Are you talking about an Elise or an older Espirt? The Elise with its Toyota drivetrain should be about as reliable as a crossfire. Although most of my friends say it looks like a roach. I just sold a yellow Esprit in favor of the SRT roadster, it was great to look at, but very impractical. Here in Vegas I had to grease valets $25-$50 every time I parked the dam thing. Go club-hopping and you could spent a hundred bucks just parking your car for the night. The SRT is easier to drive fast and doesn't get so much attention that I have to watch where I park it or payoff greedy valets.

 

If you get a lotus you have to keep in mind that you can't be over 5'8" and they are made for the track, not as much for the road. It's strictly a sport coupe. It doesn't have much of an interior, and just a 4 speaker sound system you can barely hear over the engine noise.

 

Let me get this straight...you're on the Crossfireforum asking Crossfire owners if you should keep the Crossfire or get a (ugly as can be) Lotus?


Hmmm... ...I think I know what kind of answers you're going to get!

 

lotus is a very sporty car, there is no creature comfort in the lotus. that being said the lotus can eat just about anything on the track from the 180 hp toyota engine. hell the car doesn't weigh anything its like the worlds fastest go cart...i would go for the lotus because i love to run track.

 

They're both great at what they do, but very different.

 

Personally, I wouldn't. While the Lotus is fun to look at, it isn't as much fun to drive in the city. It's good in the turns, but cops gravitate towards it - I could tell this just while on my test drive - and to be honest it wasn't very comfy. It was loud, too. I like my cars quieter. My fiancé, at 6 feet, did not fit in it at all. He wanted one so bad but he was biting his knees in the passenger seat. It was pretty on the outside, but I was not horribly impressed.

 

You test drove it for the very wrong reasons then.

The whole appeal of the Elise is that it's a bare bones no creature comforts sports car. It's everything a sports car should be - light, nimble, fast and no driver aids. The Crossfire is the complete opposite of that spectrum.

If you don't like blasting thru tight turns while bouncing off the rev limiter and feeling every inch of the pavement, the Elise is NOT the car for you.

 

Perhaps. I mostly tried it because my fiancé wanted it so bad, otherwise I would not have. But even if I wanted something bare-bones, I at least want to be able to sit comfortably so I can drive *****-to-the-ball without cringing off the seat as I do so. Which I can do in the Xfire heh.

 

She's hit the nail on the head. "Comfy" and Lotus should never be in the same sentence. If 'comfy', or a term in the same genre, is important in a car, then the Lotus is not a candidate.

It simply is what it is.

Oh, and about price...the market saturated very quickly. At first EVERYBODY who likes sports cars wanted one. Then they realized it is a street legal track car, and appointed as such.

So folks are selling very nice low mileage ones in the low $30's.

If you are interested in a used, ask the seller to provide an ECU dump. If he can't, walk away unless he's willing to take it to a dealer for the dump.

If he has it, take it to a dealer to interpret it for you.

It will tell you exactly how the car was driven over it's life, and will also tell you if it was driven in a way for which Lotus would void the engine or trans. warranty.

 

Save some money, and buy my 1996 Viper GTS for $46K.

 

Are you upgrading to a real car, a C6 ZO6?

(Yes, I'm just kidding. I like the Viper but as a 2x Corvette owner, I had to at least give you a little ****).

 

WAHAHAHA

 

so i rented a lotus for the weekend.
the 0-60 in 4 seconds is crazzy fast.
very bumpy, very loud, no comfort at all but lots of looks.
i don't like the idea of 180 hp, even tho it is very light, oh and a semi truck passed by me the opposite direction and it felt like an earthquake in the lotus. i'm gonna stick with the x fire for now...

 

Lol I thought someone might like that.

We are considering renting a lotus when we go to Vegas for a day, and a Viper for the next. Maybe just cruising it in the city won't be so bad...though we will certainly roast.

 

Love the Elise... but the bottom line is that, in the slightly used sports car category, the Xfire is by far the best thing going. In Canada a new Xfire LTD goes out the door for $50,000 + tax but a one year old, low mileage car can be had of under $25k (in the US they're even cheaper but the warranty isn't transferable if you import them). I looked at a 350Z, and by mechanic tried to get me take over the lease on his Elise.. but for the $$$, there was nothing on the market even close to a Xfire. I also loved the Xfire's driving position and the low end torque. I do most of my driving in the city, after all.

Also, why get an Elise when there are Caymans out there?

 

imo, you're on the right page but on the wrong line -
the brits have been the most exciting country to watch
since the Azure arrived (Fred Segal parking lot, 1997, there it was, good god),
but you ought to take it up a notch and forget the elise and go for an esprit.
What the srt-6 is to speed/fun/value, the esprit is the same only cubed.
- the elise is too effected.