Driving my friend Dave's 88 Turbo Esprit...

As a seasoned poster on the Triumph forum, I had to venture over to the Lotus site to share with you all an exhilarating experience that I had this weekend. Down here in South Louisiana, you don't see very many Lotus Esprits. My friend David Hayden, over in Erath, La., is a helicopter mechanic by trade and a professed British car nut. He is good at both. David acquired a 1988 Esprit Turbo last year with an engine and transmission totally turned out. Had it trucked in from Oregon. Dave COMPLETELY disassembled the engine and tranny and did a star-rated job of rebuilding the Lotus, and this weekend he let me drive it. As a dyed-in-the-wool TR6 owner I was impressed! That sucker can run!
Got back into my 6 for the long drive home, in the rain, and smiled the whole way. My first real driving experience in one of "your" cars left me fulfilled, to say the least.
As an aside, Dave has completed a TR3, TR4, TR6, Europa, Esprit, is starting his TR8 and will next do his Mini Cooper. David is my go-to guy for advice and toys. Thanks for the ride, Dave.

Bill

All I can say is I hope it's cheaper on parts than my friends 98 V8 was. He's in the UK, and had it for 3 years (00-03). He spent over 50% of the cost of the car again in parts - and nothing "major" really went wrong.

He got rid of it finally when they told him that he'd have to get a gearbox from a Renault 25 at a breakers because there were no more Lotus boxes left, if his ever went.

It was a fun drive though /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

They have never been ~easy~ cars to own, but Hooo Boy are they FUN cars. Glad you got a chance to experience the marque for yourself! Hard to describe that to someone who's not had it.

Actually he's been hankering after another one ever since he got rid of it. Then again he was talking about the S1 Elise with the supercharged S2000 engine (300hp) at Maidstone Sportscars too.

I've been trying to steer him towards a TVR but he's not interested - he put down a deposit on a 997 instead. They're nice (I had a 996) but given my druthers I'd be after something a bit wilder.