This car gives drivers a real feeling of being plugged into its architecture, a genuine in-it-rather-than-on-it sensation. Feedback comes in the form of a series of wriggles and squirms, lumps and bumps from every bit of the car you're in contact with, none of it violent or unpleasant, all of it usefully informative. During the grim winter months I'd forgotten just how devastatingly quick the 111S can be on sinuous, badly surfaced back-roads, but it's all coming back to me now. I'd also forgotten how much grip it has - the worried expressions of oncoming drivers suggest I'm not the only one who can't believe how quickly this thing goes around corners.

After asking 'is it fast?' the next question is always 'how reliable is it?' (Some questions can haunt a car maker forever.) Until now it has behaved perfectly, but recently the engine warning light came on to say the management system had reverted to 'limp home' mode. Apart from a lumpy idle the car still ran okay, but rather than risk anything serious we sent it back to Hethel.

Initially a glitch in the management system was the chief suspect, but when a brain change failed to cure the problem the fault was eventually tracked to a dodgy HT lead. Essentially the Elise was only off the road for a couple of days, so I'm not prepared to think ill of it, and it's running fine now.

So too is my Mk1, back from its fettling in the Lotus Service Centre at Hethel. There's a big difference in the way it drives, now that all the bushes and what-have-you have been sorted out. Subjectively I don't think it feels so far off the pace of the 111S, but the guys at Lotus reckon that if I ran the cars side-by-side in a test environment I'd see just what an improvement the Mk2 represents. They've offered the Hethel test track as a venue, so watch this space!