Longtime lurker joins in...

Hi guys!

After already posting in this topic in the owners-forum thought I might just add a topic to the General Forum to formally introduce myself!

Have been lurking this place for at least a year and finally decided to start posting. Some people might recognise me as a part time poster at the Pistonhead-Forums (Username Phil-CH)…

As the name suggests, I’m from Zurich in Switzerland and spend most of my time driving in the near Black-Forrest in Germany. I’m 23 (soon 24!) and my current Exige is the first Lotus and will probably be either the last or at least for a very long time only Lotus (don’t intend to sell).

Have been a huge Lotus fan ever since I first played the Esprit in the game Lotus Challenge (by developer Gremlin) on the Amiga back when I was around 11 years old and kind of stayed with the dream all these years. Always wanted an Esprit and sworn I would own a brand-new one before the age of 28. Seeing that production of the Esprit was ceased in 2002/2003 that dream kind of ended and it was time to move on. Was looking into buying an Elise around 2003 but didn’t quite have the money for a 2nd hand until I finally fell in love with the Exige S2 in March 2004 at the Geneva Motor Show…

Test drove it the first time the following year (2005) and bought one brand new late that year.

Car started of as a Graphite-Grey Exige S2 with Performance Pack, 4 point harness, A/C and stage-1 exhaust.

Many road trips through Switzerland and mostly the Black-Forrest later with a good friend who owns a bloddy quick Super7, I have now upgraded to a Bemani supercharger, including additional stuff like Bemani’s baffled oilsump, their sports exhaust and sports cat and am very happy with the results.

Anyway, that’s my story.

Looking forward to meeting you guys!


Cheers Phil


PS: Pictures of the car are in the owners forums: Clicky

Welcom to the longtime lurker.
A few other Swiss guys on here as you will have noticed, no doubt, including at least one other In Zurich , I think. You know any of them?

Not sure which other members, but I’m hoping they’ll drop a line in here or I’ll notice soon enough


Does SpeedyK post here? Never met him and admired his videos in his Exige on YouTube, but in a rather amusing coincidence also had my car parked next to his over winter 2005/2006…

Yes, SpeedyK is on here. A search might find him

The original Swiss Exiges.com member is Bruno Schlumpf. He is famous for coming to our trackday at Donington in Sept 2001,& leaving the track at Craners on only his second lap at high speed (I think he inspired Maddog to try & emulate him)

Would be wonderful to meet up with Bruno again - fantastic sense of fun, & humour

welcome…nice car

Hello Phil,

We have conversed over on pistonheads. We should really arrange to meet in the black forest this spring. We are also all going to the Ring in july for the SELOC trip if you fancy that. Hockenheim is also a regular haunt of ours. Speedy K goes there too, maybe we can arrange to meet there.

Looking forward to driving together in the future.

Ian

Hi there Ian,

Nice to see you here too! Where exactly in Germany are you located? Would love to catch up sometime in the Spring in the Black-Forrest. N-Ring unfortunately is quite a long drive (map24.com quotes over 5 hour drive) and Hockenheim doesn’t seem to be much closer either, so it might be a bit more Black-Forrest cruising for the time being…

Cheers Phil

I am in Stuttgart. The ring is 2.5hrs from here and hockenheim 1 hour. We will be at the ring for three days so its worth the drive. I would imagine most of the lads in england would love to be only 5hrs from the ring (although some south of london probably are)

We can meet in the black forest if you like and drive the schwarzwalder hochstrasse and then some of the quieter roads. Sounds like i will need to upgrade the power this spring after all if you are coming with Bemani power!

Oh, just checked Google-Earth - Stuttgart is indeed quite close to the Black-Forrest! Sounds like fun… I’ll definately let you know when I’ll be heading there. We might be getting a bit of snow as of next week, but hopefully the weather will improve quick again. If the weather is nice, I might do a tour through the Black-Forrest around Easter-Break and then I have some time off in late April (19th-22nd).

Also checked distance to Hockenheim - at between 2 and 3 hours drive, it’s much closer! Do you happen to know if there are any dB limits there?

On thursday night its almost anything goes. In theory it must be street legal. Some of the bikes are full race, with a french looking number plate claiming they are street legal there.

A friend of mine organizes private sessions on friday nights 1700 - 2000 i will let you know when the next one is.