Lotus Lines - Evergreen Lotus Car Club
Transcription
Lotus Lines - Evergreen Lotus Car Club
Lotus Lines Newsletter for the Evergreen Lotus Car Club - Jan/Feb 2010 It’s ELCC Membership renewal time, have you returned your renewal? Go online to Out WWW.ELCC.ORG for the calendar of events and photo journals of previous happenings. Don’t forget to respond, even if you are uncertain, to the Socializer email invitationss that you get, it matters. Don’t do the email or web thing, let us know and we’ll look to get more details back in to Lotus Lines....... Events DETAILS AND Calendar LOTUS F1 RETURN Since the announcement that the Lotus name was returning to Formula One, there has been some debate as to the legitimacy of the venture to follow in the Team Lotus tradition. We’ll chronicle their progress through out the year, and continue the discussion. Regardless of your point of view, the new F1 car launches February 12th. It promises to be interesting as F1 veterans Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen will lead the charge for the team backed by the Malaysian owners of Group Lotus, Proton. The new Lotus F1 factory is based the old Racing Technology Norfolk facility and it is being used as an interim factory until they get the factory in Malaysia going. Below are the first pictures we’ve found of the new car in traditional livery. ELCC Survey Summary By Don Christopher The ELCC membership participated in an on-line survey of the Club and Lotus Lines newsletter during November 2009. The 57 members who participated represented more than 50% of the total membership. The survey results are summarized below. The ELCC membership feels strongly that the Club must have a newsletter. Over 92% of the members replied that Lotus Lines is very (41%) or somewhat (51%) important to them. Members read every issue coverto-cover (77%) or look through every issue and read articles of interest to them (18%). Their favorite articles are those relating to Lotus news, technical, track, etc (57%) with a secondary interest tied between the Chairman Ramblings (16%) and Upcoming Events (16%). Even with access to Lotus news on the internet and ELCC Google Group email newslist, members still want Lotus news and ELCC event articles in Lotus Lines, even if it is duplicate information. Members like the current frequency of 10 issues per year (43%) but would not be against a slightly smaller number (32%). Most Club members prefer a paper newsletter (64%) because it gives them something real and tangible for their membership and it is easy to take with them and read on a plane or read while sitting in their favorite chair. But a sizeable number (25%) expressed interest in receiving an electronic pdf version. In both cases, there is a general realization that they are more likely to skim the electronic version than actually read it cover-to-cover. The membership acknowledges that we have a problem with lack of membership contribution to the Lotus Lines and the writing/editing/layout/printing falling on the heads of only one or two people. The main reasons are not having time to write (29%), not liking writing (14%), or having nothing to write about (29%). Roughly 15% are waiting to be asked or have something to write about but are unsure if the membership is interested. The Google Group newslist is seen as a realtime compliment to the monthly newsletter with 59% considering the newslist excellent continued inside From the Chairman’s Desktop What was it? In about 1965, Team Lotus introduced a pair of Ford Thames transporters aimed to primarily carry the Lotus Ford Cortinas. They would serve the team into the early 1970o’s. Our own Mark Sterner wrote an article (at the time called Loti Ramblings), before becoming ELCC chair, for the July 2007 issue on the history of Lotus transporters. Lotus Lines is the official newsletter of the evergreen lotus car club. opinions expressed in Lotus Lines are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the elcc or its officers. Use all techni-cal information at your own risk. Please submit all articles, art work, and photographs to the Editor. All other official business should be directed to the chairman. Other Lotus clubs are welcome to use the material printed in Lotus Lines, provided that the ELCC, Lotus Lines and the author are duly credited. The ELCC is not affiliated with and does not represent Lotus Cars Ltd., Group Lotus, Team Lotus, or any Lotus related organization. Membership in the ELCC is $20/year, with the membership year starting in January, and is prorated in three month increments. Membership includes a club roster and a subscription to Lotus Lines. Contact the Editor for business ads rates in Lotus Lines. Contact ELCC at: Evergreen Lotus Car Club P.O. Box 40481 Bellevue, WA 98015-4481 http://www.elcc.org The ELCC Officers are elected bi-annually and currently those officers are: Chairman: Doug Jackson (206)282-6182 [email protected] Treasurer: Andy Keck (206)390-3870 [email protected] Advertising: Sean Lane (206)686-7326 [email protected] Membership: Alan Perry (206)855-9464 [email protected] Editor: Robert Vets (206)669-8444 [email protected] Printed By K&H Printers Layout by Jessica Vets Design - [email protected] As the newly elected Chairman of the Evergreen Lotus Car Club (ELCC) and with the beginning of a new year, I’d like to wish you all a Happy New Year! And, I also welcome all of you who are reading this newsletter to another year of interest and activities centered around a car club whose main focus are the unique cars and engineering that have been the work of the Lotus Engineering Ltd. since Antony Colin Bruce Chapman and his wife-to-be Hazel Williams put it together in 1952. As many of you know, the ELCC has been around for quite a few years and its strength and level of interest is only as strong as the strength and interest of its members, so I’m hoping that you are all looking forward to this new year. Our car club has a dedicated group of volunteer officers and other people who help “run” the club in an administrative way, but there wouldn’t be any reason for us to do this if it wasn’t for a fairly large number of very interested general members... that’d be all of you! Some of you might like to know that the ELCC Officers held their first official meeting on Thursday, January 14th to discuss the state-of-the-club, hash out some of the administrative issues of running a non-profit corporation as well as to discuss, in some detail, many of the activities which we’d like to see the club involved in during this year. While we’ve started this year off a little slowly (what with the cold and rainy weather) with just one of our typical and continuing “First Thursday” casual gatherings at the Elysian Fields restaurant/pub in the Pioneer Square area and the evening meeting held on January 14th, you can rest assured that we’ve scheduled quite a few ELCC-exclusive events, as well as opportunities to be involved with other British car activities for the next eleven months... you’re going to have many chances to stretch your legs and put as many miles on your cars as you’d like to. We’ll be having another “First Thursday” gathering in February at the Elysian Fields restaurant/pub (which is very nice, by the way and not too expensive!), so look for a “Socializer” notice about this in a few weeks. One of the first opportunities to get together and “kick a few tires” will be at ELCC member Michael Feuell’s 3rd Annual “Lotus & Donuts” gathering on Sunday, February 7th, beginning at 10:00AM at the Krispy Kreme in Issaquah. There may be an opportunity to take a drive out into the “country” after this activity, so you might like to watch for a “Socializer” or a Googlegroup e-mail message about this a little bit ahead of time. We may also be having one of our traditional ELCC Movie Night events during February (possibly on Saturday the 20th), but you’ll definitely receive more of a formal announcement for this activity before it happens. So yeah, we’ve officially started the year thinking and talking about Lotus cars and the many fun things you can do while in or near them, so I look forward to seeing a bunch of you several times this year. —Doug Jackson, ELCC Chair for more details see all about events online at ELCC.org Survey continued from the cover or very good. Few considered it poor (5%) but 22% are not aware that it exists, which is odd since the Officers have added all members to the newslist at least twice in the past. Most agreed that the email newslist compliments the newsletter and will not replace it. Several of the members who rated the newslist poor cited their main complaints to be non-Lotus or non-ELCC-related postings, or just too many emails in general. The ELCC Web Page was rated as very good (41%) or average (41%) with the main benefits being a historical record for the Club or a means to attract new members, which happen to be the main reasons for creating the web page in the first place. But a sizeable number (12%) did not know we have a Club web page or thought it was too difficult to find (5%). Very few current members seem to go to the web page on a regular basis. A huge number of members (80%) do not know we have a Facebook page for attracting new members. If ‘yes’ means ‘maybe’, ‘maybe’ means ‘no’, and no reply also means ‘no’, then the Socializr meeting planning tool results can be interpreted as 29% read the invitations and might reply and attend, 71% read the invitations and consider noreply to be an indication of no-attend. 7% do not know what Socializr is. Member Profile The typical ELCC member is 40-60 years of age (56%). He/she may also be over 60 years old (32%) but is unlikely to be 20-40 (12%) and definitely not under 20 (0%). He/she has been a member for 2-5 years (37%) but may be a Club veteran of over 10 years (33%). He/she attends 1-4 events in person each year (55%) and either absolutely (46%) or mostly (42%) enjoys being a member, mostly because of the club events, connecting with other Lotus enthusiasts, the Lotus Lines newsletter, and keeping up with Lotus news. He/she does not like missing Club events and meetings or other members missing Club events. His/her interests are somewhat splintered between ‘old Lotus car’ owners who like to go to shop tours and ‘new Lotus car’ owners who want to go on drives and attend track days. Even though most find the Club events enjoyable, he/ she is only 23% likely to consider becoming a Club officer or hosting an event themselves, which explains the anecdotal evidence that event coordination is mostly on the shoulders of the Chairman. He/she feels strongly that the Club must have a newsletter and may even consider it to be the glue between the membership as well as historical archive for the Club. He/ she considers the Lotus Lines newsletter to be very (41%) or somewhat (51%) important to them and reads every issue cover-to-cover (77%). His/her favorite articles are those relating to Lotus news, technical, track, etc (57%) with a secondary interest tied between the Chairman Ramblings (16%) and Upcoming Events (16%). Lotus Evora Cup Car At the end of 2009, we got to finally see the new Lotus Evora – ELCC visited the debut at ParkPlace Ltd and will have feature article in an upcoming Lotus Lines to highlight the technical details. The Lotus Evora is a highly acclaimed road car with a mid-engine layout, high-tech, super-stiff extruded and bonded aluminum chassis and double wishbone suspension all round. These elements mean that it is a relatively easy progression from the production car to a competitive race car and now the Evora Cup race car has been developed by Lotus Motorsport to be competitive in GT4 racing. The race car will be eligible to compete in a number series, with options for endurance racing and sprint racing. At the heart of the Evora Cup racecar is a new 4 litre V6 race engine with a dry sump mated to a Cima six speed sequential paddle shift gearbox, designed for international motor sport. The body has received a Dallara developed aero package, which includes a number of updated carbon fibre parts, giving greater downforce and improved cooling. Following the Lotus philosophy, the Evora Cup race car weight has been pared down to less than 1200 kg, more than 200 kgs less than the production car by using high performance parts and materials and deleting parts not required for motor sport The Evora Cup racecar comes with adjustable motor sport dampers and six piston front brake calipers, with two piece aluminum belled brake discs. The car has an electrical cut off, fire extinguisher, traction control and is designed to have all the relevant FIA compatible motor sport equipment to race. The final design and specifications will be presented at the Geneva Motorshow in March 2010 and sell for roughly $200,000. Areas for ELCC to Focus on in 2010 By Don Christopher The ELCC survey results suggest that the Club work on the following in 2010: Have a disconnect between ‘old car’ and ‘new car’ members, both of which think the other is not interested in what they bring to the Club. The Officers suspect that most members like all things Lotus, including old and new cars. We should focus on bridging the gap. Bring more visibility to the Officers’ roles and demystify the inner workings of the Club by holding four Officer’s meetings per year, instead of just one, and making them more attractive for members to attend and participate in setting the Club events. This includes drawing in members who are not in the immediate Seattle and Eastside areas. Maintain the Lotus Lines newsletter in its paper version and 10 issues per year. The newsletter content should focus on the articles that the membership is most interested in Lotus news, technical, track, as well as Chairman Ramblings, and Upcoming Events. The Editor will be buffered with additional content owners who will encourage and help the membership with content submission. We should experiment with electronic pdf editions. Create an “Introduction to ELCC Google Group Newslist” to clarify its purpose, subscribing/unsubscribing FAQs, and content guidelines. No substantial changes in the ELCC web page, Socializr tool, or Facebook page, other than to make the membership more aware of them and keeping them up to date. Recruit some younger members while maintaining our current members. Happenings in HetheL of its engineering. I look forward to building on this tremendous success with the team and delivering the exciting next generation of products we have planned. These will continue to demonstrate Lotus’ world leading attributes of performance and dynamics through light weight and take the Lotus brand into more segments of the sports car market.” Dany Bahar commented, “This year will see some very exciting developments to the Lotus product line-up and I have set the Lotus workforce quite a challenge! The success of the changes that I and my executive team look to make relies upon their support and I thank them for their dedication and commitment in joining us on this journey.” New Contracts, New Directors of Lotus Engineering and Product Engineering for Lotus Cars Major projects with three Chinese clients start 2010 for Lotus Engineering, the automotive consultancy and technology division of Lotus Cars Limited. These projects make for a fourth consecutive year of growth in new orders for Lotus Engineering’s global third party consultancy work. Dr Robert Hentschel joins Lotus as Director of Lotus Engineering reporting to Dany Bahar, CEO of Group Lotus plc.. Dr Hentschel will lead the expansion of Lotus Engineering’s third party consultancy work and further its position of leadership in lightweight architectures, driving dynamics, efficient performance, and electrical/ electronics. Dr Hentschel came from Engineering+Design AG. Meanwhile, Paul Newsome, previously the Managing Director of Lotus Engineering, becomes Director of Product Engineering for Lotus Cars responsible for the engineering behind all future Lotus cars and for ensuring that they drive and perform in the way that only a Lotus can. On taking the challenge, Paul Newsome said, “Lotus has, through its launch of the all new multi-award winning Lotus Evora, again demonstrated the capability Event Details 3rd Annual Lotus and Doughnuts Saturday, February 7, 10AM Host: Michael Feuell Issaquah Krispy Kreme One of ELCC’s newer members, Michael Feuell, has invited us to his Third Annual “Lotus & Donuts” event at the Krispy Kreme outlet in Issaquah (located at 6210 East Lake Sammamish Parkway S.E.) beginning at 10:00AM on Sunday, February 7th. This is meant to be a casual get together and tire kicking activity. After enjoying the Lotuses, like-minded conversation and the donuts and coffee for an hour or so, there’ll be an option to take a short drive out through Preston and Fall City to Carnation where (with the help of Don Christopher) we have been invited to take a tour of the very interesting Giordano’s Vintage Cars sales facility (located at 4501 Tolt Avenue) which is only open on Sundays by appointment. We’ll be there at about 12:00 noon. After touring Giordano’s, you’ll have the option of having lunch in one of the friendly restaurants in Carnation, then Don has laid out a fun back-roads drive to Snohomish for all those interested This is rain or shine, and of course, it’d be great if everybody drove (or rode in) a Lotus to these various places, but it is not a hard and fast requirement. Event Details Classified advertisements are free for ELCC members, and pricing for non-members is available on request. For adding or removing advertisements, please send them via email to classifieds@elcc. org or by calling (206) 686-7326 by the 10th of each month. -- 1999 Esprit V8. Silver exterior, black interior. 57k miles. Has only 2 options that were available: glass sunroof & OZ racing wheels. New rear tires. $28,000. Call James at 206-229-0383 or [email protected]. -1995 Esprit S4. BRG exterior, magnolia interior w/ piping, 29K miles. No issues and well cared for. Stock except for Quicksilver exhaust. Last year of the 4-cyl, very reliable, 2nd owner. $29,500. Contact Sean Lane @ [email protected] or (206) 817-7326. -Looking for a Lotus car or parts? The below ads have been spotted in various sources. Note: The below ads have no known affiliation with, nor are endorsed by, the ELCC. This info is being provided to assist members in their search for cars and parts. -2005 Elise, 33K miles (Kirkland). Storm titanium exterior, red touring pack interior. Stock except for stainless 8” Larini exhaust. $25,000 OBO. Contact Patrick at [email protected] -1990 Esprit SE (Coeur d’Alene. Same owner last 7 years. Many items new. $15,000. Call (206) 898-8163. -- It’s ELCC Membership renewal time, have you returned your form yet? 2010 Movie Night Pacific Grand Prix Lapping Day Saturday, February 20, 5PM to ? Host: Patti and Andy Keck 1206 25th Avenue East, Seattle Wednesday, March 17th Host: Trevor Cobb Pacific Raceways, Kent Come out and join the club in an annual celebration of Lotus (and any other car you find interesting) on the video screen. Bring your favorite DVD of your coolest, funniest, or otherwise favorite moments and force us to view them. The club will provide all the food and sodas, you bring the beer and wine. This is also your chance to see what I’ve been up to in the garage the last couple of years with relatively little danger of losing a finger. Email me at [email protected] or call me at 206 390 3870. Classified Advertisements Our club is attempting to arrange an exclusive-to-ourclub track Lapping Day at the PacificGP karting track at Pacific Raceways in Kent on Wednesday, March 17th. Details are still being finalized, but you can expect that registration will begin at 8:00AM with a courtesy inspection and Driver’s Meeting to follow. It will be an all-day event with an opportunity to drive your car in several sessions. The cost will be approximately $100.00 for each driver and $25.00 for passengers. There will be an insurance waiver fee of another $10.00 for ELCC members. Contact Trevor Cobb at [email protected] for more information. Contribute to Lotus Lines Submit articles by the 10th of the month to get them into that month’s issue. Submit often, let us know what you’re up to with your ride. Remember, Lotus has spanned the automotive world in many ways, you don’t need a supercharged Exige, an historic seven, or an elegant Elan to be part of the Lotus world. Evergreen Lotus Car Club P.O. Box 40481 Bellevue, WA 98015-4481 What is it?