REVIEWING MY 2008 LOTUS EXIGE S240

What's up you guys? My name is Graham, and this is a review of the 2008 Lotus Exige S 240. By the way, just a quick background: Lotus is the brand that got me into cars to begin with. Before I saw a Lotus, I didn't give a [ __ ] about cars. Well, my first Lotus was in 2009; it was a 2006 chrome Orange Lotus Elise, and I loved that car. This car now, I've had for about three years. I bought it in the beginning of 2014. Anyway, long story short, Lotus is really sentimental for me. I love the car, I love the brand, so I'm going to do my best to explain this car review, review it, and give an unbiased opinion about it.

So for the most part, this car is pretty much entirely stock. The only thing I had done to it, I had a stripe down the center, I had the brakes painted in yellow, I had the side markers tinted in the front and in the back, and then I also have the windows tinted at 35% on the sides, and then I also have 50% tint in the front windshield. Then over to the back, some people like that, some people don't. I kind of dig it; I think it gives like a stormtrooper look to the car. But I have the taillights tinted, and then I also have the Lotus emblems in black as well.

This is what I thought was kind of funny: I actually don't run license plates on this car, but I did get a metal replica license plate. This is the Joker's car in Suicide Squad. It's actually metal and it's full-on stamped, so I thought it was funny. I just put this on the car instead of running a real license plate. So other than that, that's pretty much all that's done to the car. Now, depending on how long I have it, eventually I may want to do a carbon-fiber splitter, the carbon fiber side skirt, and then a carbon fiber engine scoop. But then I have a feeling if I do that, I'm going to probably want the carbon fiber wing, and then it's just never-ending from there. Otherwise, I think I'm just going to keep it like this for the most part.

So, you're able to open the engine by pressing in this. There is a little lever right here somewhere to open the trunk, and then you can see the engine and some of the trunk space here. So this is a 1.8 liter engine; it gives off about 240 horsepower with about 170 pounds of torque, and this is a lot, by the way, for this car because it weighs just about 2,000 pounds. So it's more than enough power. I mean, this car just propels you so quickly. I really love absolutely everything about it.

What I also really like about this too is it is so different from everything else on the road, and especially in Los Angeles where Ferraris and Lamborghinis tend to be a dime a dozen. I rarely ever see another Lotus, and when you do, it's a big deal. If we usually see each other, we'll wave. This brand has such a great community behind it that everyone tends to know each other, which I think is phenomenal.

This car is also really easy to maintain; for the most part, all I've done to this car is just an oil change, and that's it. Even the oil change, I was able to do myself. It took about two hours, super easy to do, really easy to learn. Other than that, for the most part, this car is essentially a Toyota, so nothing really breaks. It's been pretty bulletproof. I've had this about three years; again, all I've done to it are oil changes. That's it; the car has been perfect.

The other great thing about the car is it really doesn't depreciate in value. I bought this three years ago, and last year I actually got an offer that was five thousand dollars higher than what I purchased the car for because they only made about one hundred and forty-four of these. Very few of them are out there; it's a hard car to find. The values tend to stay about the same. Even my Lotus Elise, I floated around 30 grand and I sold it two years later with 7,000 more miles on it for about thirty thousand dollars. So essentially, this car is just a savings account where you just put your money in there, you hold it there, and if it goes up in value, great! Otherwise, you're going to get about what you paid for it, which is awesome.

So essentially, this is like driving a free car that all you have to do is pay for gas, insurance, oil changes, maybe some other little modifications you want to do to it, but otherwise, it's like a free car, which is so cool.

So now here are a few of the downsides of the car. These are things that I think, you know, it sort of is what it is; there's really not much Lotus can do about it. First of all, there's really no storage space in the car at all. This is it; this is your entire cabin. You have a little bit of space behind the seat; you have some sort of net there that's good for maybe holding a few papers if you don't have the passenger. This is actually a lot of space if you have groceries or want to carry something. Then I also tend to put my phone here. I guess I have a few iPods, a garage clicker; it's enough for some little knickknacks.

This is your trunk space; it's pretty small. It's enough for really just a car cover. I put a bag here; maybe if you had... there's not a lot of space. And then I have no idea why Lotus did this, but there is a trunk release right here. So I guess if you're trying to kidnap a child and you try to stuff them back here, it's not really going to work because you just press this, this could open, and then your child escapes. So, not that good.

Then, speaking of storage space, check this out. The Lotus was smart enough in 2008 to add one of my favorite things to the car, which is a cup holder. Now, my 2006 Elise never had a cup holder, so what I would do is if I had a Starbucks cup or like any sort of cup, I would just try to place it there and then hope it didn't splash around. Lotus cups! March 2008, they added this. This is the best addition to the car, I think; I've never done. It’s the most useful thing.

So this is the sort of attention that the car gets all the time. Well... oh no! I'm not... this is good. No, that's hilarious! So one of the things I forgot to mention about this car is just how much attention, again, it gets. A lot of attention, and it's pretty much all the time. Every time I'm driving the car, it's hard not to notice it. So obviously, a lot of people want to talk about it, but you just get some weird people that show up that come out of the woodwork when you're driving a car like this, and you just get some really oddball questions.

Speaking of not a lot of storage space, this is not a good car if you're really tall or fat. I've found that I had friends that are over six feet tall, and it's very difficult for them to get in the car. When they get in the car, if they're in the driver's side, their knees usually hit the steering wheel, and sometimes their head hits the top of the car. Oh my God, don't tell me again! Oh my God!

It's also such a low car that you have to be super careful about going over speed bumps or taking a driveway the wrong way. This is my lesson right here. I was super careful with the car, but one miscalculation was this entire thing that was just a driveway, and I was maybe going about 1 mile per hour. The other thing, because the car is so low, is that when you're going into a parking structure, taking a parking ticket is actually really difficult because usually the parking ticket thing is like a foot above where you are. So you have to roll down the window and then kind of lean out the window to take any sort of parking ticket.

But the upside of this was that this car is actually lower than some of those parking things that come down. I don't know what you call them; I'm just going to call them a parking thing. But every now and then, you get a parking thing that's higher up than the car; it's very easy. You don't even need to take it; you just kind of go underneath the little parking swinging things.

So the layout to everything when you're sitting in the car is pretty basic. Obviously, here you have your controls for the windows; both of these control the lights. So obviously, the lights are on, lights are off, press this button, the engine starts. Then everything on the dash is really just what you need: a huge gauge for RPM, and then how fast you're going. That's it; that's really all you need.

Down here, you have your air settings, obviously hot/cold. This turns on the AC; this just circulates the air, and this is how much air you want. The knees open up; you can kind of turn them if needed, and you have a bit of storage space here. You know, again, not much. This is what cars are really all about; it's about having the best time possible.

That's in a car was built just right; steering handles perfectly. By the way, when you aim it in a direction, it goes in that direction and so responds to the 12. Now since this 2008, they upgraded the brakes with a few racing brake calipers. Such a good job at stopping a car just barely from 17 screeching. Oh, that actually makes it indicate. The brake that I have gets a little squeaky when I get warmed up. Let's plug in! It's a part of owning a car that I lost knowledge to do is just... oh, like let it go! It's just a quick... and that's the thing - this car weighs about 2,000 pounds, so it doesn't take a lot of power to propel itself really, really fast.

Also, it's just really hard to drive this car without smiling. I can just feel how much fun it is to drive. This car almost plays like therapy. If I have a bad day and I'm stressed out, whatever, I do in the car, everything else disappears into me—the road, the call, the sound, and unlike anything else. You're thinking, “My God! Skinny exhaust afar,” by the way! To me, I upgraded into the soggy socks, pretty quite to a stage 2 exhaust. That's been some of my favorite things ever; it comes with a little quality.

You believe it's like, again, the whole exhaust opens on, and it's like that sense to me. It sounds... cars are pretty cool. Another place, Mountain Park Zoo, in really good gas mileage. You know what? I'm excusing the car I'm driving with; it's bad to be at higher RPMs. I still get about 15 bombshell. Now, compare that with a lever DNA or glory—anything with a V8 and V12—this part of Christmas. I want to drive this on the freeway, please. Better! I usually get about 25 to 30, depending on how fast I'm driving it, and it was these— which is amazing for a car like this.

So, notice of the downside car? What I'm driving at low RPMs. Most piece like this, again, doing it to make this video so you can actually understand it's not that difficult to hear each other have a compositional car. Let us see you accelerate; the targets a lot louder. And catch reflux disease, Yamini respondent Arlington. I really have to raise my voice if I'm trying to have any force on the car because it's so loud. Now, part of that is my fault because I have a response of obviously not on inflation to the engine. It's like seven issues behind me; the car, you really have to help not a car to have any firm conversations and yourself loudest.

I'm not really sure you need to want to have a conversation in this car; frankly, I'd rather just listen to the pigeons. Adding someone else’s prospects may be a good thing. It's also a really intimate car; the whole cabin here is pretty small, so when I have someone to the XM8, I basically have the shifter up against four legs. Let me down, then I may clearly grab your leg or something. This over here: not my fault, it just is not a lot of room here. You can see, well I'm barely reaching, and I can touch the positive side dormant. It's really small; I actually had to close these doors, and I'm looking for another thousand. It was started; everything kind of rattles and squeaks, and I think it's the British car thing, and it's a loaded thing; something you have to expect.

But for instance, my - has this week when it's parked in the sun for longer; their life and ours is also a bunch of little rattles and shakes down the car. Again, it's something you really have to live with; it's not that big of a deal, and respecting works like luxury quality. This is definitely not the car; it's more like a go-kart in terms of the build quality. Life for fun to drive, so I feel like that almost makes up for all the rattle. Another downside is you can feel pretty much every bump on the road, and it makes you feel like your car is falling apart. I'm just going to hit one of these little things here, and you feel it.

I mean, it's really loud when it's driving over these things; even potholes feel like the cars are falling apart. It shakes you to your core; like, you feel any sort of bump in your bone. It really just goes right through you, but on the other side, depression is really stiff. It's really great for handling, and that's kind of the trade-off.

So I actually pulled over to the side of the road to show you how difficult this one was. There's no power steering, and this is great when you're going at high speeds just because it's so responsive. But when you're trying to turn around and going like one mile per hour, you really have to use a lot of force to turn this wheel. So I'm going to show you, by the way, I also can't see at his back, so that's another thing. I watched a fluffy turning; well, [ __ ] there you have it, that was my workout!

As you can notice from doing that turn, I can't get it back at all. This bag is completely blocked by the supercharger air intake, and that's the roof scoop. It comes to the side; it pulls air into the engine in the back. I can't be [ __ ] out of the back of the car, so essentially, this is useless. I don't know why they have a rearview mirror. But let me show you what I do to work around it.

This is it; that's my entire view. Again, there's my entire view to the back. So what I do instead is shift the mirrors a little bit more inward, and that gives me a way to see a bit of the back of the car. I'm sure I have a huge blind spot back there, but for the most part, this tends to do the trick. Quick side note: these are sun visors and they're pretty useless. I don't know why they're in here; they don't really do anything. That's not even a mirror! Like, I want to check myself out; I can't even do that with you on this car.

Here, you have to be pretty careful about making sure people see, especially on the freeway. It's not uncommon when someone wants to merge into you just because you're so low to the ground. So, say SUVs; we're usually just below their mirrors, and when they're drowning, or when they're changing themost, I'm against these reports not seeing any for blind spots.

So, another thing that people tend to ask friends: does the car helps you get your own answers? No, because mostly the car just attracts dumb boys like me, to be honest! Because those really kill people in cars. This car probably won't set values like out yet; not many Maharaj! Whoa, great! Go [ __ ]!

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