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15 Year Anniversary of my 2006 Lotus Elise

Today was the 15 year anniversary of my picking up the Elise. I did post some pictures after years one and two but I figure a milestone event like this is worth a few more. Click through on the pictures to see them in more detail on Flickr.

Picked up from Los Gatos Luxury cars on 6-Dec-2005 some 5 months after I placed the build order. I was told that this was the first 2006 Elise delivered in California.
ZoneTag Photo 16:54:43 PST

Did the 1500 mile break-in down Highway 1. I was at the dealer 6 days after pickup with the odometer at 1490 miles.
ZoneTag Photo 11:09:53 PST

My first trackday at a very cold and wet Laguna Seca. You can see me giving the apex plenty of space πŸ™‚
Laguna Seca

One of the very first EliseTalk forum lunches in Nov 2006. I remember being younger and thinner.
Elisetalk Lunch

19,200 miles at the one year anniversary
Happy Birthday!

Another trip down highway 1.
74 miles of fun

Visited the Tesla factory and got some side-by-side pics with the Roadster.

Had a massive 95 mph spin at Reno-Fernley Raceway in May 2007. One of the pics I took that day ended up becoming a full page magazine advert for SCCA Rallycross.
My first magazine photo

Drove to Vancouver to present at JCDL 2007. Winning best paper was a nice bonus after a fun drive.
Friday 1:16 am 6/22/07 Vancouver,

First breakdown was caused by the wires to the coil pack wearing through in Aug 2007. Interestingly enough this exact same issue has happened twice more since then. This time was particularly annoying as Nithya was in the car with me and we were in a spot without cell service. Having to thumb a ride away from your sports car isnt fun.

Roadtrip to WCLM 2008 in Oregon where I won the Elise class at autocross.

Jen Dietsch took this great pic on the way back from OR to CA
mt shasta

Took a roadtrip through Death Valley on the way back from LOG31 at Las Vegas in Oct 2011. Timelapse video below:

Had a pretty big shock when something smashed my windshield while driving in the Oakland Hills in 2012. Never figured out what the cause was, I was only doing 25-30mph on side streets and didn’t see anything make contact.

Hung around a boat yard while working on Jims houseboat in 2013
It's a bird...  It's a plane...  It's an Elise under a houseboat????

Organized the 2014 West Coast Lotus Meet in Lake Tahoe. My car is hiding in the back row.
WCLM 2014 Concours (3 of 11)

Got some nice photos when I became a 3 Lotus owner in 2015. Unfortunately the Ultralite and the Evora have since left my car but they did leave a bunch of memories.
The triplets

Shipped the car over to Texas to drive the fantastic Circuit of the Americas racetrack in 2016. This is what inspired me to go to Spa in 2019 and hopefully more F1 tracks in future.
L81_9674

Got the signatures of Alastair McQueen (founded Lotus Driving Academy), Kevin Youngs (longest serving Lotus employee), Mike Kimberley (Lotus CEO), Patrick Peal (Head of PR) and Nick Adams (Vehicle Development Head) on a dash panel when we went to the UK in 2016. Goes well with the Tony Shute signature (Elise project manager) that I got on the other side of the dash a few years before that.
Signed Elise Dash Panel

Spent 5 minutes trying to unlock this car at WCLM 2019 before I realised that it wasn’t mine πŸ™‚
Spent 5 minutes trying to unlock this car before I realised that it wasnt mine  :-)

Hit the 100,000 mile milestone in July 2019. Fittingly this was on the way back from a GGLC Autocross
100,000 miles

Did a pro photoshoot with the car at the Golden Gate Bridge in Aug 2019. Dont know why but the car looks a lot smaller now πŸ™‚
Throdle

A photo from earlier today (6-Dec-2020) after 15 years and 102k miles on the clock. I do need to take some more pictures now that I am a 3 Lotus owner again but that will have to be its own post.
15 years later

2 replies on “15 Year Anniversary of my 2006 Lotus Elise”

Hi, I left a message on your Flickr account but not sure it went thru. I am a new Ultralite S2k owner and wanted to pick your brain a bit about the car and setup.

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