[quote=C8UER]Everyone is obviously different Lee, so I can only tell you my experiences from leaving Lotus and then coming back, but the bottom line is that I’d suggest holding onto the Exige!
Let me tell you why. I started off years ago in a Caterham Superlight. It was my first performance car and the best thing since sliced bread. I drove everywhere in that little car and over 18 months, I covered 24,000 miles!! So from that stage on, lightweight sports cars were in my blood.
I then went over to an Elise Sport 135 and loved that even more, mainly because it had a proper roof, was better over the bumps and was much more practical, but didn’t lose the fun factor.
After two years with the Elise, for some reason I got “the itch”. The same itch that you now have. I wanted more power, more luxury and something that I could waft along on with more torque. I don’t know, I just did. I didn’t have a lot of cash to spend at the time but got offered a great deal on the new shape Mini Cooper S Works (JCW version). With 210bhp it was more powerful than my 135bhp Elise, although heavier, I think the straight line performance was probably about the same.
So I swapped. The Mini was good, I enjoyed the creature comforts with things like sat nav, air con, a decent stereo (Harman Kardon), leather seats, etc. However, all of the creature comforts could not mask the underlying enjoyment of the car. It was good, but not great.
So what did I do? I swapped. I thought “hmmm I know what I need, more power”. So I bought myself a MKV Golf R32. I thought 4WD, big V6 engine and even more creature comforts would be a great idea. It wasn’t. What a mistake! The Golf was heavy, slow, ate fuel like no tomorrow and was expensive to service. By trying to find that exitement again, I thought more power was the solution, but it wasn’t. As that old tyre advert used to say, “power is nothing without control” and the Golf cumbersome, it wallowed and was dull.
Don’t get me wrong. The heated seats, the automatic wipers, auto lights, etc, were all clever little gadgets that I liked, but they were exactly that…gadgets.
So, I ended up selling the Golf and bought an Elise SC. What a breath of fresh air. I loved that car because the performance was great but the handling even better. You really don’t realise how much fun these cars are until you drive something ordinary for a while. I’d forgotten just got much fun they were.
However I’ve always wanted an Exige and after being offered a very good trade in for my Elise, I swapped to the Exige S PP back in January and have never looked back since.
So the moral of my story is that for me, the sorts for cars I enjoy the most are lightweight, good handling, performance cars. Big power is fun, but it’s tough to mask weight with it.
As a final point, I’ve driven a lot of different cars. At a Walshy day a few years ago, my dad brought along his Porsche 997 Turbo and I was in the Elise. We swapped over after lunch and I had a go in the Turbo. Yes it was capable and very fast, but actually it wasn’t as much fun. You were worried about the amount the tyres would cost if you started to slide it around. It wasn’t as agile and although you could go fast in a straight line, it wasn’t a lot of fun.
My dad said to me afterwards “this isn’t much fun” as he sat in the Porsche. He enjoyed my Elise so much that he ended up buying a second car…an Elise SC Type 25 
My advice to you would be to go and drive some of these other cars. I did and ended up buying them, but I went in telling myself that I wanted it before I’d even driven it. Probably the wrong thing to do. If driving is the most important aspect of the car to you and by that I mean enjoying the actual drive (feedback, feeling, handling, etc), then ignore the creature comforts, ignore the gadgets and gizmos, focus on how the car drives, because trust me, the gadgets only satisfy for a little while but the drive will be there forever. [/quote]
what I said but better written(!)
