Post
by tut » Wed Jun 20, 2007 11:08 am
Just saw the replies.
Greg
I bought it as a B&C 140 in 1999, and Ricky and I upgraded it to 180hp. Geary kept the same engine in but completely re-bodied it with his Motorsport kit. Tony Doe then bought it, spent tens of thousands more on it, and had the Audi conversion done by Bernard.
Lowell
I wrote it off a mile down the road, one week before tut towers 2001. Just dug this out from my old files.
I sent this to Steve Butts shortly after the accident:-
“Tuesday
Just to let you know why you have heard nothing from me as regards the bushes. I wrote the car off last Friday. Wont bore you with the details at this stage, but was lucky to come out of it in one piece. Few cuts and bad bruising, but otherwise OK. Strong little buggers these Elise's. I have not told anybody else yet, as I do not want to put a dampener on this weekends tut towers event, so if you could please not mention it to anyone.
As you can imagine, I am gutted, partly for the car, but mostly that it happened when it did. Fortunately it only affects me and not all the others coming up for tut towers. I have a friend in the next village who is doing the weekend, and we were driving down on Friday together anyway, so I will now go as his passenger.
You probably know better than most what my car meant to me, as like you I had done a lot of the work myself, or along side Ricky, so after looking at several options, including Graham Routledges fully converted 194hp car, I have decided to start from scratch again. I went down to the garage where the car is yesterday, before the insurance assessor arrived, and took off the DTA ECU, wiring loom, throttle bodies, distributerless ignition etc, and loosely put back in place the old items. The engine has moved, there is not much body work left, the suspension isn't, as it is resting on its belly, but still the insurance assessor has an engineer putting together the cost of replacing all the items, including the chassis. Seems its standard routine. However, assuming it is a write off, I will try and buy it back from them. It still has the head, complete with camshafts and verniers, exhaust manifold, lightweight flywheel, and most important of all, C/R box. Plus spare mmc disks etc. Other good news is, as you know, I had just taken the Ledas off and sent them back for a rebuild under warranty, as they were leaking, and the old Konis are back on.
Wednesday
Have been surfing the Internet, 121 Elise's on Autotrader, but found a private one in Hampshire. Other end of the world of course. Its a '97 one owner azure blue, same as mine, with 3,000 miles on the clock, FLSH at HR Owen, and showroom condition. Absolutely standard, hard top, never been out in the rain, but does have the essential extras, leather, driving lights etc. That was yesterday, so today I thought what the hell, lets see if I can get it before Friday, so that I don't miss my own weekend. Arranged an overdraft just for a week and picked up a bank draft today, booked an Easyjet flight for Thursday morning, Aberdeen to Luton, and he is meeting me there.
Then I realised that about 14 of the guys are meeting up at the Knebworth service station on the A1M, at 1100 on Thursday morning. They are staying at Newcastle that night so that they don't have to do the whole journey on the Friday. And that is only 15 miles from Luton Airport, where I arrive at 1000. So I got new N1 TUT plates made up today, which I will stick on with pads over the others, just before I drive in. As I said, I have not told anybody yet about the crash, and as I am supposed to be 600 miles away in the wilds of Scotland, let them work that one out. The only drawback is they stop at Newcastle and go on the piss, whilst I have a further 275 miles home, then 150 next day back to Knockhill, which I pass on the way. Still its cheered me up. Biggest laugh is, I will be putting 2,000 miles on the car in 4 days, and he did 3,000 in 4 years.
Anyway, bored you enough, but if you don't mind, next time I mail you, I wanted your advice on whether to go the same route as before, or be a bit more ambitious. However for a little while I will leave it alone and see what a standard car feels like.
All the best
tut
Ps When I turned up at the meeting place on the A1M on the Thursday morning, with the stuck on N1 TUT plates that I had bought down with me, nobody except Ruggs knew that I had written my car off. At first nobody realised anything untowards, just did not know why I was there. Then they noticed that this car actually had paint on the front of it!!!!!â€