The World According to Tim Skipper

I was exceptionally fortunate with this car, in that it didn’t cost me a penny to run in the 7 months I owned it, beyond petrol and insurance. It transpired that the Sport 190 wasn’t quite as production ready as it should have been, and in return for allowing Lotus to continue to develop the Sport 190 using my car I was given a 2nd set of road wheels & tyres, the very expensive Dynamics suspension, a 2nd set of track tyres, servicing, several free track days and all sorts of other goodies.

I had developed a good working relationship with the staff at Lotus Sport & Performance, and particularly Chris Dinnage. A lot of this stemmed I think from my genuinely enthusiastic attitude about the car, despite some of the problems it suffered, having the first UK car (mine was actually chassis #002, #001 was build as a motor show car and was sold abroad), and of course, my web site.

I set up a web site, www.sport190.com, which was getting 20-25,000 visitors a month from the Lotus community and others interested in this new model, and I know for a fact they sold several cars off the back of it. This all helped, of course.

My car took pride of place on the Lotus stand at the 2002 Goodwood Festival of Speed, which I spent a very pleasant weekend at, again as a guest of Lotus Cars, and it was used by EVO magazine for their 2002 Track Car of the Year feature. That was a fun event to attend; two days at Jonathan Palmer’s excellent PalmerSport facility in Bedford watching the boys from EVO caning some interesting cars around. I met Jonathan and he drove some laps in my car and was very complimentary about it.

All of this attention didn’t come without its downsides. It got up the nose of some people on various Internet forums that I was being looked after by Lotus so well, and I got a fair amount of stick over it, and sadly, when the car was written off one of them even tried to persuade my insurance company to reject the claim. I found that all very sad, but ultimately of no consequence to me personally.

So what was it like to drive? Well, I can honestly say it was fantastic. I had a second car at the time (a Mercedes A160), but I hardly used it - opting to take the Lotus out wherever I could – even shopping in Sainsbury’s on occasion.

When I picked it up on the Saturday, I had a track day booked the following Saturday (actually an airfield day at the sorely missed Bentwaters RAF base in Suffolk), which necessitated driving the 1,000 miles required to have the first service completed by the Friday. That was a fun week, although I must admit my business suffered a little!

I must have done 10 track days in it over that summer, and with each of them I gained a little more respect for the car’s abilities. I’m sure I never drove it to its full potential, and for a long time afterwards, actually until I got my Caterham, I really missed it.

Sadly it all came to a spectacular end one sunny Saturday afternoon in September 2002. The Lotus was set up for track work, so it was very stiff, too stiff for bumpy back road use really. I had gone out for a drive, and headed out along some of my favourite roads before returning cross-country through some back roads in a part of the county I wasn’t overly familiar with.

About halfway through my journey I was getting bumped and banged about so much, and losing traction on some bumpy back roads, that I decided to stop and back off the suspension so fully soft. The rears were a real pain to adjust as the adjusters were very hard to move with bare fingers, so I only got it about half way between where it was and fully soft. So I set off again with a slight improvement in ride and traction.

Driving along an unfamiliar road, I came across some severe dips in the road, not going particularly quickly (58mph actually, according to the log from the GPS I had in the car), but it was still too fast for this depression. I braked hard, but was unable to stop the rear going light and it went into a spin. Unfortunately the small bank I went over backwards had a 4 metre drop the other side into a cornfield. It hit the ground nearside rear corner first, and it rolled end-over-end two full rotations.

I can honestly say it was the most terrifying experience of my entire life, yet I can still distinctly remember thinking to myself “keep your arms in!” The roof was off and windows down being a sunny day. The car was totally destroyed but thankfully, I was unhurt.

It was a write-off, of course. I had a new for old policy and I was given the option of having another Sport 190 built for me, or taking a payout for the value of the same. Lotus was very keen for me to have another, and promised they would expedite the build, but I decided, rightly or wrongly, that I’d take the money.

I telephoned Lotus and told them, very sorry but I’ve bought another Porsche. They were clearly disappointed, but I felt at the time it was the right decision for me. I still do actually, but all the same I felt bad about it since they had been so good to me.

So I started the year in a Porsche 911 and ended it in a Porsche Boxster S, but the bit in the middle was an unforgettable and, with one obvious exception, a very enjoyable experience.

As I write this, 4 years on (it really doesn’t feel like it) I still feel as though I have unfinished business with Lotus. Their now Toyota powered S2 Exige appeals to me a great deal, and I did call on Guy at Lotus Cars dealer Stratton Motor Company last year and took one out for a drive. The deal didn’t happen then, I had my Caterham and M3 which were not really suitable part exchanges, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find another Lotus in the not too distant future.