yeller77

Agree with the roughness of the castings of the surfaces of both the cam towers and the underside of the covers. It helps to take some emery cloth or similar to smooth out all those casting imperfections for a nicer sealing surface. I had a machinist once offer to machine a groove in the tower to allow a long o-ring type seal to be used. Never got around to trying that before acquiring some late model cam towers with flat covers, the other solution.

It's amazing. With availability of factory drawings, CAD, and fabrication anything seems possible these days. I have a mate who has a P-51 and is assembling a second one. He pretty much just started with a dataplate...

We have to get our Darwinism fix somehow now that they took Live PD off the air Anyway, that looks about as real as WWE wrestling.

or, alternatively, Garry Kemp https://www.facebook.com/Kemp-High-Performance-Engines-Limited-113309057106766/

Even better. Wonder what their deposit books are looking like.

JB seems to be a consistent and appealing ambassador of the marque for the moment, with general appeal to the UK and perhaps Euro market though unknown appeal beyond that (may not hurt to also have Mario hawking a black and gold Emira in the States. Oh wait, you can't configure that 😶). Lotus are so far removed from any high level motorsport successes that they would've had to poach one from somewhere. Besides, sure beats the Swizz...

A telling point in the interview was Matt's reaction to hot laps in the Emira prototype: his reaction was that he wished his stint wasn't up and he just wanted to keep driving it. That is the essence of a Lotus to me. As to US Evora sales, it's hard to know if they're reflective of renewed demand or discounting of remaining inventory improving access to the masses. The 400 has gotten some good social media "press" the last couple of years, though. Rightfully so, but the dealership network remains threadbare with a few large players and limited access to most.

Excellent interview, Bibs! Thanks for producing it, but of course, your cherry on top was the Emira sneak peek! There's no question that Matt "gets" Lotus. They are in better hands than I've felt in a long time.

Agree, or the appropriate thread chaser.

^^^ And, in the same vein, will there ever be a time/place/car/engineer to do a "Rome run" again?

Yes, part of the death knell for F1 at Indy. IIRC, Ralf had a nasty crash with back injury during qualifying thanks to a tire letting go.

Pretty good. But this is my kind of engineer 'splainin'. Punctuated with chugs of Red Bull. 👍

Is this one going to be "Hammond proof?"

Sounds like one may have to pack a lunch for the factory tours of the future!

TBF the post may have needed it's own thread. However, it does seem highly topical to Lotus in that a former boss is now working with an entity formerly tied to Lotus in it's halo car development and seemingly involved in a less than amical separation. Food for thought. I do hope this doesn't put a damper on the posting of the many Dany Baharhar escapades though!