The dash is very plain. Not much more than my old Ford Ka. You can just about see it in one of the new photos. I got a few pictures of the dash just from some of the existing photos but they aren’t great. The dials are speed (in mph) and RPM. Everything else is digital, including the fuel gauge, engine temperature etc. There are also 3 lights that blink when you over-rev it to tell you to shift up a gear but they only turn on at crazy revs that I shouldn’t be doing in the first thousand miles anyway.

The engine is also very unimpressive to look at. It’s just a Toyota ZZ engine. 1.8L, 4 cylinders. It sits just behind the seats. The front is a radiator, then the seats, then the engine, then the small boot that cooks things from the engine heat.

The reason for both of these is that Lotus is all about high speed and acceleration through very low weight to give it a high power to weight ratio. The original Elise S1 didn’t come with electric windows because the motors were too heavy.

I could have got one used with 22,000 miles on it for £15k but someone beat me to it and I didn’t like the rest of the used ones.

This one was new (actually a showroom demo car they used for a few test drives, 290 miles on the clock, built 30 June 09) and has a few optional extras like air conditioning and traction control but the fact that it was a demo car added to my haggling got a reasonable price (of about the same as a normal family saloon).

I have some better pictures of it now but I haven’t blanked out the reg plate on them yet.