Cargasm
\Car-Ga-Sum\, n. An orgasm that is induced by the appearance, driving, or sound of a particular car. See Lotus Elise.

Of all of the thousands upon thousands of cars that have designed, created, trashed, raced, and envied over, only a handful of cars have ever produced "cargasms" in people. Not just people who drive it, but people who LOOK and HEAR it. People who have experienced it know damn well what a cargasm is.

Allow me to present an entry into the Cargasm hall of fame. This vehicle can be had for UNDER $50,000, does over one lateral G on a skidpad, from a standing still, will run to 1320 feet in around 13.5 seconds, will stop from 60mph in around 115', and will likely fit into the back of a 1980's Toyota pick-up.



I am not a person who enjoys long driving trips. As a matter of fact, I hate them. I hate traffic. I enjoy arriving at the destination far more than the drive. So, when a friend asked me if I was willing to drive roughly eight hours from Las Vegas to just outside of San Jose... I was not open to the idea.

However, there are details of this drive that helped my initial dislike of the proposition change:
- I would be dropping the car off and then flying back
- I could bring my girlfriend (making the trip less boring)
- The car has AC
- It also had a Radio
- all of my expenses would be paid for
- oh, and it was a 2005 Lotus Elise

Cargasm!

After asking for some opinions, I figured, "what the hell". The call was made, details were ironed out... and I took possession of the car at roughly 10:00pm on Friday night with an expected departature time of 6:00am Saturday morning.

It's 10:00 pm, I'm taking possession of the car, I get the necessary information about the drop off and all of that jazz. Looking at the car brings an immediate cargasm. I open the door and slide in (i'm only 5' 7"). Everything falls into place. The shifter, the gas pedal, the clutch... everything. I insert the key, and fire it up (Push start button, hehehe).

I never used reverse before in this car...but it's rather difficult to get into. At first, It made me grumble a bit, then i realized, this car is about FORWARD and SIDEWARD motion.

I leave my friend's house and head to the freeway. I get on the on-ramp and take it to roughly 6000RPM and shift.

"holy crap this thing moves"

At around 10:05 pm, I'm approaching a stop light when i hear the wail of some rather irritating exhaust. Some kid in his Lebaron was revving on me!! Amazing! I've had the car for a total of five minutes and there's already some goon trying to race me. I ignore him and continue my commute.

10:10 pm, I'm nearly ran off the road due to a SUV that's being piloted by someone who has never seen a Lotus Elise before. Their faces (both driver and passenger) are placed firmed against the driver's side window.

10:20 pm. I'm at another stop light when a few guys in a lowered/wheeled galant hollar over to me. They ask what year the car is and say nice car. I smile wishing it was mine....but for the next 16hrs, it was.

Saturday, 7/9/05. We manage to wake up at around 5:00 am and leave from Henderson at 6:00 am.

During the drive to Primm where we would stop for breakfast, the looks on other people's faces was priceless.



Seeing this image in your rear view mirror can incite some questions, i'm sure. But, the degree and frequency was incredible. You could almost imagine the conversations that occurred in the cars around you. For instance, pulling up behind a newer Mercedes Benz E class... the drive turned to the female passenger. Then, the female passenger would look in the side mirror, then almost immediately turn completely around in the chair and look out the back window.

This was a constant thing on the freeway. From kids affixing their "ooh, what's that" looks to the windows to the elderly with the exact same gasp. We passed a brand new Corvette, still had the temp tags on it... even he looked over and stared.

When we stopped at Primm some 40mins later, we grabbed ourselves some McDonalds. We sat in and ate our food and watched as every customer that came in, stopped next to the car, and looked thru the windshield and windows to peer inside.

Cargasm!

We continued on our trip, stopping at every other city. The Elise has a pretty small gas tank, allowing only eight some odd gallons into it's chassis and only providing roughly 200 miles before it drinks it all up.

During one of these pit-stops, I believe the car may have started an arguement between a husband and his wife. This guy came over and was staring at the rear end of the car and stood there. Smiling. He muttered one word and one word only: "Beautiful". The look on his face was the EXACT same look that many guys have on their face when they see Jessica Alba or Natalie Portman. In the background from a Honda van, you could hear the wife say: "are we gonna go?!" The husband still caught in the trance, ignores her. He only moved when I began to walk between the Elise and him.



Roughly three or four hours into the trip, somewhere just before Bakersfield, I was moving inbetween traffic to avoid the 60mph that everyone was maintaining. I made a pass accelerating to about 105-110mph and began to slow back down again when I looked into the rear-view mirror and caught something in my eye...

it was black, white, Ford, had a ski-rack on top...wait, that's not a ski-rack.

As soon as I saw him, I knew he was after me. I moved from the left lane to the right lane and into the shoulder even before I turned his lights on.

Now, most Police Officers will bend over a bit to talk to you thru the window... perhaps even squat...he took a knee. The cop was roughly 6' 3" and probably didn't want his crotch to do the talking thru the passenger side window. He laughed, said he's pulled over Porsches, Ferraris, but never a Lotus. He was obviously very impressed by the car saying "it probably idles at 90mph" and "it's probably hard to keep it at the speed limit".

"Damn, i'm getting a ticket" was all I could think of. Not stressed, I simply laughed it off... the cop was way cool about everything...easily the nicest cop i have ever been pulled over by.



I began to look at the ticket to determine how much it was going to be and how fast he wrote it for... 87+ mph in a 65mph. Not too bad...



I'd like to say it stopped me from speeding... but it didn't. The rest of the trip, I managed to substain a cruising speed of roughly 95mph. The Elise is such solid car, it simply drives at 95mph as it does at 15mph.

At roughly 1:15 pm, we arrive at the drop-off point. 7 hrs and 15 mins later, we managed to drive 530 miles, including 10 minutes for a law enforcement based stop, 15 minutes for breakfast, and 3-10 minute stops for gas. for driving time alone, we averaged 84mph. The place we dropped the car off was having a dyno day and also had some neat cars floating around:


Hardtop Elise...in blue, cargasm!



We initially had a flight out of Oakland at 5:40 pm... after getting a ride from Modacar's owner (thanks again!), we caught a flight out of Oakland at 3:30pm!





Driving Impressions
- This car is PERFECT. brakes, steers, accelerates... everything is soooo smooth.
- The radio sucks.
- AC, pretty good! definite power drain on the engine though
- Maybe the alignment, but when you lift off the gas, the car tucks and pulls to the right slightly...
- 6th gear works just as well as 5th gear.
- in order to pass at 80mph with urgency, go to 4th gear. with "gotta go now", 3rd.
- This car is tiny, making it very easy to navigate traffic
- the seats start to hurt your back after awhile... but it has a pumped lumbar support thats kinda cool.
- no cruise control is kinda sucky for long trips... but, then again, it's a track car.
- it has a HUGE blind spot at the b-pillars.
- cargasm.
- shifts very smooth, except the throws seem long to me for a purpose built-track car.
- the speedo seems to be off by 10mph (it's optimistic)
- fat and tall people, sorry... this car is not for you
- the aftermarket exhaust on the car sounds absolutely superb.
- people either want to get a closer look at the car or try to race you.
- i have no clue where the redline is, so i shifted at 8000rpm and it still pulled like a bat out of hell.
- the Toyota engine is awesome. screw K20s...why make the car MORE appealing to idiot honda thieves by sticking a K20 in it?
- i seriously want one...
- you could easily have this as a daily driver... as long as you need to go grocery shopping.

 

you lucky bastard!!!! hehe

 

sick sounds like my kind of car... beautiful color btw

 

Sweet....but 4 hours to Bakersfield? You weren't trying hard enough

 

that is a pretty bad ticket, actually: 21 or more over the limit gets you a 2 point ticket and like a $200 fine

 

Those cars are very cute.

I'd like one. I'll take mine in the graphite gray, thank you.

 

Nice write-up. You make the car sound very tempting. So is it 2x as good as a s2k? (since the price is)

Also, out of state ticket points don't matter, do they?

 

oooh, tough one.

For me, yes. I'm not a huge fan of the S2000, but i appreciate/respect it for what it can do.

For others, doubtful.

Most people complain about the comfortability of the Elise... if you look at it strictly from a daily driver car... the S2000 wins hands-down. The S2000 has better interior materials, more sound deadening, a better/louder radio, thicker seats.

but, the Elise is just simply faster. The Elise feels so much stronger than any S2000 i've ever driven. The only thing the S2000 and the Elise come close to each other, in terms of driving feel is... both require downshifting (and many gears) to pass in moderate power.

Otherwise, the Elise is so much more of a driver's car, where as the S2000 makes several compromises to make it tolerable to drive daily.

The Elise is the perfect track and weekend car. No other street-legal car beats it, imho....

I think they do...