Almost everyone I’ve spoken to since this year’s Lotus 2015 has come home buzzing and ready to head straight back out for the next one. So, to tide you over until 2017, let’s catch up with our friends in Western Australia to hear about their Lotus 2015 weekend, thanks to Eddie Lankhorst.

By Eddie Lankhorst

WA attendees did their state proud, however, more of that later.  Our adventures started for most of us in taking our pride and joy to CEVA for the long journey to South Australia.

John and Robyn, however, did things a little differently. They flew to Melbourne to pick up their new purchase (a leery striped titanium S2 Exige) and started their adventure by driving to SA via the Great Ocean Road. A trip they soon found difficult.  Being their third Lotus, they were accustomed to packing light but they were not prepared for 1/3 of the boot space being taken up with a charge cooler water tank and pump!!! Hence their passenger space was greatly compromised.

Les and Marilyn arrived in Adelaide on the Monday prior to collect their car from CEVA and had their first misadventure – a scratch on the pristine paint work.  They then proceeded to explore the hills and city surrounds over the following day. 

Come Wednesday Les decided the car needed some more TLC and preparation for the concourse so he arranged to have the car detailed.  However, upon pulling over to consult the GPS for directions a 4wd decided to back out of a property and Les’s & Marilyn’s life was flashing before them as the driver hit “Blue” into the LH door and mirror.  So that was misadventure two and it didn’t end there as misadventure three occurred on its way back home when a metal bar within the container smashed the windscreen and damaged the front clam.

Vicky and I arrived Wednesday night destined to be car-less on the Thursday, as our car was still on the train!  Thanks to good friend Richard, who offered his car for us to drive on Thursday as he wasn’t arriving ’til Thursday night.

Once we picked up Richard’s beast our team was starting to form with John & Robyn, Les & Marilyn and now us. After a long day exploring the hills we greeted Richard and Pete at the airport.  Wow the Adelaide Hills contained some fantastic twisty and winding roads, the likes of which WA natives have never seen.  So Friday we did it all again with our White Exige, and Richard and Pete followed in the Elise, to again explore the same roads we had discovered the days before and then onto our first night at Lotus 2015.

Now it was busy time to re-acquaint and make new friends from the Lotus community.  Next day was the concourse at the National Motor Museum in Birdwood.  And wow it was here that the whole scope of this gathering really became evident.  Don’t remember Qld and Vic Lotus events being so obvious.

I will leave the big Lotus 2015 write up to someone else, but WA really rocked over the following days, and I was proud to see our team really shine.  The auction night, I would be confident to say that we bid the hardest and highest of all the states.  At the formal dinner we took out the award for Concourse in our Exige V6, Pete took out an award for his time on the race track, we should have taken out the award for the most flamboyant car with Doug’s hay covered Evora.

So much fun was had by all, it was a shame to depart SA.  John and Robyn continued their driving adventure across the Nullarbor, and the rest of us, deposited our cars at CEVA for the return journey.

Well, that journey didn’t end there for Les and Marilyn’s Blue Elise.  Les got that nervous call from CEVA to say that his car was damaged.  As it turned out, a steel bar and the container decided to part ways and the bar fell through the windscreen and continued to bounce around the car finally settling against the clam gouging away as the train rattled its way to WA.