JamesThorburn

Actually a week is a lie, its very nearly two weeks now, but the first few days it was sat in the garage waiting for the tax to be sorted.

I was really concerned before collecting it that I was going to miss the MX-5 and that the Elise would be a little too hardcore and impractical.

It seems silly to consider the MX-5 practical, but by comparison it really is. The Elise’s boot is literally half the size of the Mazda’s, and thats before I put the tool kit in there. It also has a weight limit of 50KG, and everything you put in it gets cooked thanks to being sat behind the engine and above the exhaust. That said it proved big enough to fit my camera, tripod, laptop, a change of clothes and the soft top in, which is all I really need. The interior is completely devoid of cubby holes, or even a glove box, so any CD’s have to live in the boot too.

But then I knew this before I got it, and I don’t care because it is absolutely gorgeous and makes every journey feels like an event.

The Mazda was an incredibly fun car to drive, but the Elise is so much more physical and communicative that it sucks you in to another level. Nothing is assisted, no power steering, no servos on the brakes (if you need to slow down quickly, you need to press them HARD!), no traction control and the engine is like a living being over your shoulder which communicates to you as you move through the rev range, changing its tone with every modulation of the throttle pedal. Put simply if you want a car that engages you completely there is nothing else like it.