Mark “Zen Dude”
Founding Member – Director of Zen
Hi! …I’m Mark, aka … The Zen Dude.
I bought my 2007 KG Lotus Elise in January 2008 brand new at Beverly Hills Lotus, and believe it or not, just two months prior to buying it I didn’t even know what a Lotus was. My background is actually motorcycles and monster off-road vehicles, but sometime in October 2007 I was driving down the 2 freeway heading toward Glendale and I saw a unique car ahead of me. I was like “WHAT IS THAT!!!???” It was quite a bit ahead of me and as I attempted to catch up it pulled off the freeway and I lost sight of it.
A month later, at the end of November at the LA Car Show I found out what it was. An Exige. Holy crap I fell in love with Lotus at that moment : ) Immediately after that I found the Lotus forum and started reading. Then my search began. I set my sights on a Chrome Orange Elise until I found out about Krypton Green. This was going to be my company car so I wanted it to pop!! In early January I saw a KG Elise in the duPont Registry, and then discovered that it was at Beverly Hills Lotus. I had never seen an Elise up close other than at the LA Car show, and had never ridden or driven one. But I didn’t have to. It was the sexiest, rawest, sportiest car I’d ever seen… and I wanted one. Friday evening (just in case ; ) I filled out an application to purchase the car at Beverly Hills Lotus (without my wife knowing), and Saturday morning on the 12th of January, I woke up and drove down there to check out this car. Holy crap!!! …to cut to the chase … I bought it that day.
Within a month, I hadn’t even made a car payment yet, and I was on the track at Buttonwillow for a private track day … twelve cars – twelve instructors. Then it was Streets of Willow, followed by the Lotus 2-day school in Pahrump, NV at Spring Mountain…and it continued from there. The car is more or less the stock Sport pack, with Pagid Blacks, Motul Brake Fluid, a Stage 2 exhaust, Exige-style side scoops, and a new aluminum BWR radiator. It’s always been my daily driver, and I put 30,000 miles on it the first year. I have over 110,000 miles on it right now and can’t bear to drive anything else. And why would I?
– The Zen Dude
Carlos Martinez
Founding Member – Head Finance Dude
2011 Evora Hyper Fast Liquid Blue
It started in 2005, Lotus rolled out the Elise, and I really wanted one, until I drove it. I quickly realized it wouldn’t work as a daily driver for me, but it planted the mid-engine handling seed. After several other sports cars, in 2011 I started working on a few deals and finally found the perfect match at Boardwalk Lotus in the Bay area. So, on a Saturday shortly after the deal was struck, I jumped on a plane from So Cal to Nor Cal to go pick it up. The drive home broke the car in, and life has only been better since.
The car gets driven every day, tracked 2-3 times a year, and for everyone that keeps saying the clutch is only good for 20k miles, I’m happy to report that they would be dead wrong! I am well beyond 61K and counting. Of course, this bio wouldn’t be complete without a gratuitous pic of the F1 simulator and yours truly (and my better half, at Monterrey Car Week no less!).
Mathew Kaplan
Founding Member – Website Pit Crew
When I first had the opportunity to own a car like this, I was pretty sure I would end up in a Cayman S. I would never have considered myself a Porsche fanboy, but after participating in a charity event which had me in a Panamera for two straight weeks (like, literally in the car unless I was in the bathroom, eating, or sleeping – not that those things didn’t also occur in the car) I felt a special bond with the brand – or at least I thought I did.
I was in the neighborhood of a Lotus dealer and was convincing myself that it wasn’t worth stopping. Obviously, I’m not very convincing because I stopped, and as soon as I came around the corner and saw the car, my thoughts were no longer faithful to the Porsche. The dealer was loading cars up for the LA Auto Show, so I agreed to put a test drive off for a week or two.
As you can imagine, the test drive went well, but I don’t even know if it mattered. From the moment I first saw the car, the idea that it could be mine began overwhelming me. After only a few days, anything else I used to love would barely even turn my head.
Even after three years of near daily driver service, I still get excited every time I walk into the garage and see the Evora.
Samuel Gao
“Crewman Number 7”
It all started back in 2007, when I had my first taste of the Lotus Elise from Enterprise Rent-A-Car in Pasadena, CA. After crashing the vehicle and marginally surviving the accident, I was hooked. No other car has brought me face to face with death quite like the Elise. The incredible steering, handling characteristics, and the remarkable balance definitely instilled a false sense of confidence during that one fateful night. But prior to my accident, it was my first taste of what it felt like owning an “exotic car” with attractive women giving positive attention (even though the car was a rental). The lesson I should’ve learned was how amazing the focus of driver centricity that the engineers at Lotus had pulled off. Rather, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on one so that I may find my next super-model girlfriend.
11 years later, a much wiser, more mature Sam was in the market for a new vehicle to complement my MK7 VW Golf-R. 
After test driving a ND1 Miata, I wanted one. It reminded me of the exhilaration of driving a Lotus Elise. I may not quite land my super-model girlfriend with the ND Miata, but at least the drive will be comparable. That’s when my business partner talked some sense into me “Why don’t you buy a lotus?” You see, when I had my accident, my business partner also rented a lotus from the same Enterprise rent-a-car in Pasadena to which we concluded that it was better than riding a roller coaster. I looked in the classifieds, and to my surprise the price of the ND Miata I was looking at (brand new) was practically the same price (sometimes higher) than a used Lotus Elise!
3 months later, I was in a 2006 Lotus Elise Touring, with only 8700 miles. It had less mileage than my Golf R, but I knew I had to get rid of the Golf and replace that vehicle with something more practical: A Mazda CX-5. I knew I needed lessons right away to tame the Elise as without the proper respect, you will die.
Thus, I joined a few track days, learned the handling aspects of the mid-engine beast and won my first ever Lotus Cup Race. Several victories later, I landed a spot to drive for Team Lotus in Formula 1. And then I woke up…
