The World’s Greatest Cars
Top Gear is waffling on about how Lancia is the world’s greatest make of cars.
What bollocks! After all the collective noun was a rust of Lancias.
They showed a K-reg Lancia Delta Integrale and described how good it was. Perhaps it was, as that Car magazine of about that time, said that the three greatest cars were, the Porsche 9-11 Carerra 4, the Integrale and the Lotus Elan. Admittedly, they were judging them on a cross-country route rather than on the M1.
Judge those cars now nearly twenty years later.
My Elan is currently filthy, but turn up anywhere smart and you get the proper treatment. (The landlord of my local pub likes it in the road outside!) Have an argument with an oick in his BMW and you can lose him down a country lane. Show it to a real lady and she knows it’s a real car! Ask it to corner fast and you chicken out before it does!
Lotuses are like that!
Mine has done over 111,000 miles and except for those things you’d expect to replace like filters, brake shoes and the occasional exhaust pipe (one in all those years), very little has broken. A window winder motor and a sun visor for a start. And possibly a finish!
They’re like that too!
I’ll never claim the top spot, but my Lotus is the second greatest car in the world.
The Anonymous Widower 
Lotus Elan seems to be nice car. I just wonder how fast it takes from 0-60 mph? How many horses it has?
Mine is three years old Opel / Vauxhal Vectra OPC with 280 hp. I have also test drived Insignia OPC with 325 hp. That was great also in snow and on ice.
Have ever drived Your car in Genmany highways? Did You know that in Germany one can drive as fast car runs and this all legally?
Next summer I’ll again to drive fast there, what a enjoy!!!
Regards.
Comment by sartenada | January 22, 2010 |
Elan’s are an acquired taste. They get into your mind and body.
I have driven it in Germany and it is great fun on the autobahn. Most Germans don’t know what it is and flash for you to get out of the way. But bear in mind that between 80 to 100 mph, the performance is up there with most modern high performance saloons. But Lotuses are not really about going fast, they are about travelling in style down empty twisty roads.
I believe that you are in Finland. This summer, I hope to be able to take the car from Dunkirk, through Holland, into Germany and up to Copenhagen. There I will take the bridge/tunnel to Sweden and then go round the Baltic to Finland and on to Saint Petersburg. It will then be back through Latvia etc and Poland to Berlin and then home.
My only problem is that I’m a coeliac and need gluten-free food.
Comment by AnonW | January 22, 2010 |
Wow. I must confess that are brave. I never go to Russia with my car, never.
I wish to You happy car travel!!!
Comment by sartenada | January 22, 2010 |
I have found the hotel there and it has an underground car park! But I prepare things well.
Comment by AnonW | January 22, 2010 |
That sounds great, but anyway take all posible insurances!!! They might be gold if something happes.
Comment by sartenada | January 22, 2010 |