scannon

How about mounting it inside the fiberglass nose cone before the radiator? FWIW, E470, the only toll road in the Denver area just switched over to reading your plates and billing you. You can still use the box if you want to.

David, I know it's not considered a "manly car" but may I suggest a Miata? It is a very good driver's car from the factory and when modified can hang with an Elise at the track. A very satisfying car to drive and it has all the conveniences and is much easier to enter and exit than a Se7en or an Elise. It won't give you a sore butt either. If you ever get out Denver way, look me up and we'll go carve a few canyons and you can see what a well modified Miata with 270 hp drives like. I know many consider them a girlie car but like the inscription on my dash air vent says "AT 15psi THIS AIN'T NO CHICK CAR". The other vent has the usual "SIT DOWN, STRAP IN, HANG ON AND SHUT UP". The car has made many believers at the track and in the canyons. Skip

Jeff, Now the fun starts, the search, the build (or not) and then driving your own Se7en.

Kiwi, Nice looking seats. I suggest you take your helmet with you and try those seats before you have the headrests on yours kicked up. I have to remove the headrest on my Caterham seat when using the helmet as it hits the headrest and forces my head forward and down. Hard on the neck and it feels weird trying to look down the road from under my eyebrows. Kind of a Neanderthal thing but, hey, it matches the car's knuckledragger behavior.

I had my complete Caterham covered with 3M clear bra. The tech did not cover the louvers in the bonnet nor the space between them. I had it done in stages and don't remember the exact total but I think it came in around $1,200. There are visible seams but most people don't notice them even when I tell them the car is covered with clear bra. Everything that was painted blue on the car was covered including the scuttle. I removed the windscreen so the part under and behind the screen is also covered. After the first year on the road, I had the stainless steel rear wing stone guards rhino lined as they were extensively pitted and dented from the rocks. I also had the underside of all 4 wings rhino lined to prevent star cracks. After about 3.5k miles there are a couple of places on the side panels where sharp rocks have actually cut/gouged through the plastic. I'm certain those panels would look a lot worse had they not been covered. One thing I learned about clear bra, there are several levels of pricing. Shop around and if you have a friend in car sales business ask for a referral as if you had bought the car from them. I think had I paid the total retail price it would have been closer to $3k. Moonlighting is also a possibility, I knew the tech from previous jobs and called her directly. She gave me a great price and like most in the business came to my shop to do the work. I'll do it again if I ever need to respray my car.

I got an assembly manual with mine but no owner's manual.

Sounds like you are ready for a change and have convinced yourself of it. Go for the Elise. Don't keep the Se7en long enough to hate it. Or maybe you just need better seats in the Se7en.

I wonder if there are any unbuilt Maxton kits hiding in a shed somewhere. What a fun project that would be. Skip

Moti, Great way to start a new career, writing about something you love. Let us know when you do other articles. Skip

I have Adobe Reader but not Acrobat. The form opened in a Mozilla Firefox tab.

Mazda, OK, I've filled out the form that cannot be saved but how do I go about emailing it to Al? I tried but failed to find a way to attach it to a PM to Al which seems to be the only option available. Skip

Hank, Nice driver side door on your Megabusa, how did you get that to fit?

I own a Caterham and have driven three different Elises, two on the track and one on the street. I also got a ride in a 2-11 on the track. Here are my impressions of the Elises. As difficult to get in and out of as a Caterham. More refined than a Caterham but you lose some of that elemental sports car feeling of the Caterham. You get many things not available on the Cat: A/C. windows, doors, weatherproof and so on. They really are two different cars for different purposes. Try to get a long test drive before you make a decision you might regret. The Elise I drove on the road was fun but after only 50 miles it was starting to feel uncomfortable. I would no more consider driving it cross country than I would the Caterham. This might not be a problem for you if you are much younger than I. I drove the two Elises on the track back to back with my turbo Miata. Neither Elise was as fast as the Miata and my lap times in the Elises were better than when they were driven by their owners. I wouldn't have traded my Miata for an Elise at that time even if I didn't have to pay any difference. I'm sure others will have much different opinions of the two cars but you need to get some seat time in an Elise before you can make an informed decision. If you buy one and don't like it, you can always sell it and get another Se7en.

Thanks Bruce, grabbed the wrong link. I fixed it in the original post.

We've discussed this car before, now one of the 50 is up for sale. http://www.pd-go.com/index.php?action=website-view&WebPageID=25341&WebSiteID=409

It went to an Infinity dealer in Florida. It's unknown whether it was for himself or for the dealership. I asked Ben to make sure the new owner was made aware of this forum. I had a chat with Ben at Caterham USA and he said they have just received 6 kits, 5 of which went to owners or dealers. The 6th is an R500 which will be assembled and sent to the car magazines for testing. Ben said the R500 segment on TG last week has really increased their web and phone traffic.

Happy Birthday youngster, may you have many more. Now out with the pics!

Hey Mazda, you da man, get with it and create another Off Topic forum. How about a sub topic under Off Topic just for an F1 topic?

I've always liked this one, the Renault F1 engine playing "We are the Champions"

Looks like most of the driving footage is right out of the Victory by Design edition on Lotus. Alain deCadinet appears to be driving most of the cars. Fun and interesting to watch.

My Top Geek T-shirt arrived today. It was a surprise as I had completely forgotten about it. Did anyone else's shirt take this long to get here? Very nice shirt. I'll wear it to the LOCO (Lotus Owners of Colorado) meeting next week.

Hank, Congratulations, first start is always a great feeling. Looks good, sounds good. Skip

335 hp and sub 1,300 lbs, should be a really fun car.

Does anyone recognize the orange car in picture #12 from last year's show? It looks like a cross between and Audi TT and an Elise. http://www.gatechautoshow.com/gallery_mgr/gal/2007%20Show/orange_mitsu_racer.jpg

IMHO, you are dreaming (possibly of fraud). Once the car is in the system it is easy to check the VIN against manufacturers records. You will have to turn in the old title to get a new one in another state. No DMV is going to let you change the date of manufacture as listed on the old title. People used to be able retitle in a few states to get the Salvage designation removed from the title but I suspect that loophole has been closed by now. Some kit cars have been registered as replicas of the original and have the year and in some cases the brand name of that original on their titles, it varies state to state. When I first registered my '04 Caterham, it suddenly became an '07 on the title and registration to match the year of its first registration. This was according to Colorado code. Fortunately Colorado has a law that exempts kit cars from emissions testing.