Oops! I Did It Again - Placed a Deposit on A 2016 Lotus Exige

That didn’t last very long. With every intention of being very good with my money, and just owning one car - my very sensible 2012 Audi TT TDI - there appeared a dream spec Lotus Exige S3, and I just had to grab it. It only just popped up on Auto-Trader/Pistonheads at earliest the 11th November, and just a day after I saw it on the internet, I placed a deposit on 19th November (I reckon it wouldn’t have hung around long). I go to visit on 30th November. Probably purchase mid-December (I really wasn’t planning to get another Lotus for a while, so need a little time to get a reasonable deposit together.)

Of my 4 Lotus cars so far, the Signature Orange Exige was my favourite. I love the signature orange colour with the gold fleck in. That was a 2016 Exige S with the Automatic Gearbox and leather seats. This Exige is better: it’s a 2016 Lotus Exige S3 V6 S Club Racer spec, Signature Orange, manual gearbox (I didn’t mind the Automatic, just manual is better), and Alcantara seats (I love Alcantara).

This time, I’m going to stop being silly about trying to pay off debt and just enjoy the car! I’ll regard it more as a lease - which I’ll buy in 4 years’ time if I have the funds - and a bit of asset. According to an online calculator, with a £9000 deposit on a car priced at £42990, with 4 years PCP, £21950 balloon after 4 years, it’ll cost ~ £390 a month which isn’t bad. I’ll go back to Classic Line insurance, get my 5 or 6 free track days a year, use it for track days, and road trips, not use it for boring business mileage, plan to not do more than 5000 miles a year. It will have to be kept in car storage (too nice to just park outside my house), hopefully car storage more local than before (like a walk in the park away), and when I move house it will come and live with me, and hopefully I’ll keep it forever (yes, I always say this, but here’s hoping I mean it this time!)

Image 1: Signature Orange Exige S3 Club Racer