​For two cars that ostensibly serve the same purpose -- an immersive, analog driving experience ideal for clearing one's head — the Elise and Caterham feel quite different in their delivery.  Ignoring the obvious, such as the fact one has power windows and one doesn't even have doors, it's the way they both go about the analog aspect that differs.

The Elise is significantly heavier — about 45% when loaded with half a tank of fuel and a driver — and feels it. Sure, it drives significantly lighter than normal cars, but it's not being compared to anything remotely normal here. The steering is a little lighter, but just as communicative. The brakes take significantly less effort and work better until the Caterham's have generated a lot of heat. Chalk that up to power assistance, and better stock pad compound for my use case. Looking at the other driving touch points, the Caterham's Tillet B6 seats lock you into the chassis, whereas the Elise's only offer half-hearted grip. This makes a difference as the tighter fitting seat more quickly communicates feedback from the chassis. The shifting experiences are polar opposites. The Elise is generally ok. There's no hiding it's a cable design and located several feet from the gearbox. Throws are longish and a bit vague. The Caterham's gear lever sprouts directly from the gearbox and feels it; short, crisp, precise shifts that are a joy to experience. Thanks to the CORE dampers with digressive valving up front, the Caterham has significantly better damping, which is immediately noticeable over broken tarmac, but the Elise fights back with a significantly stiffer chassis; steel tubing brazed together in a space frame vs. aluminum extrusions glued together with advanced adhesive to form a solid tub.

But the biggest difference is the cornering. The Elise has very quick turn in, but the Caterham is comparatively instant; there is no hiding the fact the Elise is nearly 700 lb heavier. At similar speeds the Elise feels locked in. It just goes around the corner, and the weight balance is such that you feel the rotation slightly below mid-thigh. The Caterham feels quite different. Ultimately, it can generate similar grip levels, but because you are sitting nearly over the rear axle, any movement by the rear end is felt immediately, and the rotation occurs closer to your ankles. It's very easy to rotate the car on the throttle, and as a result it feels more alive, especially at lower speeds. It's more of an experience. Although they are both part of the same coin, they clearly occupy different sides.

Shifter improvements - There are several mods available to improve shift quality ranging from easy to hard and from nearly free to ~$2K. I decided to start with two of the cheapest and easiest. First, after experimenting with adding weight to the shift knob and feeling a difference, I purchased The Bollock knob from Inokinetic. On my scale, weight increases from 118gr to 367gr (vs. a claimed 400gr) and it is a slightly larger diameter at 1.9" vs. 1.8". Second was Stan's Mod which adds shims, typically in the form of washers, between the floor and the bottom of the sheet metal shifter frame to reduce lateral play. Rather than washers, I opted to 3D print a custom spacer to maximize the footprint and to match the sawtooth shape of the floor rather than just sit on the tooth peaks. The photos of the spacer below show the POC version printed in PLA. The final version was printed in PETG-CF.

Between the two, shift quality is improved. It's a big enough change that I don't believe it's a placebo effect, yet not so big that it elevates it into the realm of good shifters. It has, however, moved it further into the more-than-acceptable-for-me category.

​Seats - Seat comfort has been considerably improved through a combination of tilting it back a few degrees via 3D printed spacers and adding the Sparco kidney/side pads. For the pads, I wanted to make sure they could be removed with no damage to the leather and ideally affixed in a way that allows slight repositioning. The fix was a sandwich of Command strips affixed to the seat, then EVA (a flexible closed-cell foam) stuck to the adhesive side of the Command strips, and finally adhesive backed Velcro loop material is attached to the EVA. The pads, which have Velcro hook material sewed to their backs, mount to this sandwich. This setup will allow for fine tuning of the pad position, while providing enough strength to keep them in place. Or so I hope.

Earlier, I had tested a Command strip on an inconspicuous part of the seat to check for any reaction to the leather or dye. After a couple of weeks with no issues, I'm optimistic, but I will pull them in a month or two to confirm, and then again after a longer period. Provided things are still okay, and this fix holds up to regular ingress/egress, I'll cover the pads with Alcantara for aesthetics and consider it done.

Tires - The car came with AD09s that had aged out. Unfortunately, that tire is no longer available in the US in 195/50-16 needed for the fronts, so after digging through a number of reviews, I went with the Bridgestone RE71RS. Not a good standing water tire but reportedly does well on wet tarmac and very well on the dry stuff. Given how I'll use the car, this should suffice. Tramlining, grip and ride were immediately improved with them installed. It's hard to say how much of each is down to a better tire and how much is due to it simply being a fresher tire. Regardless, these are very noticeable improvements.

Alignment - After the tires were installed, the car had its first alignment since leaving the factory. Because I will drive the car almost exclusively solo, I opted to limit ballast (176 lb.) to the driver's seat. But I did stick to the factory's other recommendation of 1/2 tank of fuel.

The target numbers are based on the commonly recommended settings on LotusTalk:

• Front: maximum achievable negative camber with all front spacers removed, and 0 toe.
• Rear: -2.5° camber each rear side, and 3mm (0.40°) total toe in.

The stock settings have significantly less camber front and rear, with a tiny bit of front toe out and a little less rear toe in. Caster is unchanged.

The top table shows the starting alignment numbers followed by the final numbers in the bottom table. Coming in with positive camber on the left front, and total rear toe over double the recommendation, was surprising. Even if I wanted to stick with the factory settings, things were still well out of whack.  

When buying a car for driving pleasure, I follow five immutable rules. They’re non-negotiable. Someday I may be forced to revise them, but until then, they stand.

• Engaging/Analog/Visceral/Tactile. Pick your adjective. The car must pull me in and make me feel like an extension of the vehicle — an integral part of the experience.
• It must put a huge grin upon my face when traversing a winding road, no matter how I felt before the drive.
• It must have a small footprint. For reference: the 993 is the upper limit. The Cayman crosses the line. A modern 911? That just makes me sad.
• Three pedals in the driver’s footwell. No exceptions.
• Steering feel must be good to great. Which, let’s be honest, rules out electric power assist.

For me, these rules ensure the car will encourage me to hunt for corners and practice the optimal line while staying within my lane. They ensure fun at any speed.

With the Westfield gone, I began thinking about filling its spot in the shop. Pleasure driving duties are already split across four cars, so any new addition would need to fill a gap—not duplicate an existing use case.

As I considered those gaps, two stood out.

First, a turbocharged engine. Not the modern kind like in my Mk 7.5 GTI, which spools very quickly and delivers torque from very low rpm, but an old-school turbo—like my much-missed Porsche 951.  I enjoy modulating the throttle to dial back the onrush of torque as boost builds mid corner.

Second, a mid-engine layout. Unlike the turbo gap, this one’s never been filled in my car-owning life, making it a higher priority. The Cayman is the obvious choice -- it's always the obvious choice -- but at nearly three inches wider and four inches longer than the 993, it’s simply too big. I toyed with the idea of something left-field like a Dino 308GT4, but the potential maintenance costs make me nervous. The first-gen MR2 had already been ruled out during the Miata search in 2011.

But when I considered the Elise, I couldn’t think of any negatives. It’s small, handles brilliantly, offers great steering feel—and every drive feels like an occasion. Reported drawbacks include gearshift quality, seat comfort, and ride harshness, but none of those are things that can't be fixed.

​Given my back issues, my main concern was whether I could manage the ingress/egress ballet. A local owner generously offered to bring his ’07 Elise by so I could give it a try. When he pulled up, my first thought was, “Ooh, Chrome Orange—my favorite color!”

I climbed in and out with an acceptable level of discomfort, which meant the search for an Elise was officially on.
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We chatted for about 45 minutes. Toward the end, he mentioned plans to list the car on Bring a Trailer sometime next year. When I asked about the delay, he explained that he wanted time for proper photography and to tackle upcoming maintenance items so the car would need nothing. Plus, with BaT’s usual lead time, the listing would otherwise land at the wrong time of year.

This car was perfect. One owner, 28k miles, spotless, fastidiously maintained, and Chrome Orange. Having tracked prices for the past month and seeing wild variations in seller expectations, I assumed he would be on the unreasonable end of the spectrum. However, when he said what he was hoping to get for the car, I realized he was being reasonable. I then asked if he could sell it now, without any of the hassle leading up to spring, would he consider it, and a deal was struck.

I was extremely lucky to buy the car from this particular owner. He kept meticulous records throughout its life, amassed a generous collection of spares, and made only minimal modifications. The most notable of these are the SSR Comp wheels in Sport Package sizing—6.5" wide fronts versus the base 5.5".
Those wheels are significantly lighter than the standard Touring set. Based on published weights, the fronts shed 3 lb each, and the rears drop 7.5 lb apiece—for a total unsprung weight savings of 21 lb. In a 1900 lb car.

Now that I’ve logged nearly 200 miles in the Elise, a few discoveries have surfaced.
First, the gear change: it’s fine. Not great, but certainly acceptable. I might make some minor tweaks to improve it, but until the dreaded blue ball fails, I’m not investing in an expensive aftermarket setup.

Second, the ride. Also fine. Perhaps the car’s reduced unsprung weight helps, or perhaps it’s the reasonably smooth roads in my area. Or perhaps the people who complain just aren’t used to stiffly sprung cars. Or perhaps a combination. Regardless, I see no compelling reason to upgrade the spring/damper combo right now.

That leaves the seats. They suck. Badly.

I really don’t want to drop big money on Tillets to fix the issue. So, for the hell of it, I pulled the little Sparco side pads from the Miata’s Sparco Sprints and wedged them behind my back. Instant fix. They reduce discomfort by adding support where I need it, and they close the oversized gap between my midsection and the side bolsters—dramatically improving lateral support. 

That's a long enough Blog entry. In the future, I'll cover how the cars compare and how the use cases differ.