Cool Neighbor is Cool

"Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney" (braddelaparker) 02/24/2015 at 19:09 • Filed to: None

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A couple of weeks ago he had an S4 Esprit hanging out on the street, and now this Omega/Carlton.

scoob > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney 02/24/2015 at 19:13

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BECOME FRIENDS WITH HIM.

GAIN HIS TRUST.

THEN YOU INFILTRATE HIS GARAGE.

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > scoob 02/24/2015 at 19:14

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Working on it, giving up my body is totally an option.

TwinCharged - Is Now UK Opponaut > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney 02/24/2015 at 19:26

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Aaaaand in an instant, everybody on Oppo is jealous. Much jealous.

j.davism5 > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney 02/24/2015 at 20:00

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SO.MUCH.WANT!!!!!!

I've looked at importing one of these down to Aus a few times....they are holding good values in the UK.

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > j.davism5 02/24/2015 at 20:14

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Seems like the bottom of the market was a couple of years ago from what I remember when I followed the values more closely.

duurtlang > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney 02/25/2015 at 14:28

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Those things still are insanely expensive. €25k easy. The performance version of the Opel (not Lotus) Omega isn't overly expensive though, it costs merely a fraction of the Lotus even though it's the car the Lotus is based on. Here are two examples.

We do still have to write that E30 piece. I don't know about you, but I sadly haven't been able to do so yet.

thebigbossyboss > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney 03/09/2015 at 07:18

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From the back it looks like an Opel kadette.

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney 03/23/2015 at 12:24

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Duuuude. Lotus needs to get back to making this kind of thing again.

I wonder if they could make a business case for being sort of a nutso-skunkworks like AMG but for whoever rocks up and gives them money and a base car...

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires 03/23/2015 at 14:46

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Lotus was it their best as an engineering consulting firm that occasionally dabbled in post-OEM/pre-consumer tuning. Consulting pays the bills, keeps you sharp, and forms the relationships you need to get access to bodies in white/cars fresh off the assembly line in the kinds of partnerships you need to be successful.

Unfortunately, I think the modern automotive manufacturing game doesn't play well to that format. Every automaker has an extensive, dedicated chassis team in house now. I still think Lotus would probably do a superior job when put face to face with most such teams, but they simply wouldn't ever get the chance when there's a dedicated in-house team, regardless of quality, experience, or what you have.

They're still doing the consulting, it just probably isn't in near the volume that it was in the 80s and 90s, which is a damn shame.

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney 03/23/2015 at 17:13

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Agreed. The only way to do it nowadays is to become an in-house skunkworks for a brand, but you need a premium brand for that to work, and there's few of those around that don't already have one...

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires 03/23/2015 at 18:59

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And the thing that has always been so cool about Lotus-tuned products was that they were limited to anyone marque like M, AMG, etc. I'd love to see them get brought in house somewhere if it's what was required to save them, but their ability to work on anything and everything is what is so cool, to me.