Zenos E10. My Thoughts After A Test Drive.

[Simon Mac]

TBH I'm impressed. Ansar Ali was there in person, and a very nice chap. We spoke as much (if not more) about the business and it's goals than the car.  (As well as some insider info on the workings of both  Lotus and Caterham of course )

 

The car itself was a bit scrappy cosmetically around the edges, as you'd expect from a test car, but fundamentally it seemed very solid. No knocks, bangs, rattles or squeaks.   They had a sample piece of the carbon fibre from the tub and it was incredibly light.

 

Unfortunately the weather today around Silverstone was dreadful, so I really did have to go pretty gently on the road portion of the test drive, and more disappointingly the whole circuit was red flagged, so I didn't get a full speed PAX lap.

 

As I left the service roads,  I could feel the front was washing out a little on the greasy roundabouts, but it all felt very well balanced and could feel some movement of the back under throttle (I wasn't about to powerslide the only road legal Zenos on a public road though).  Basically a safe road setup.

 

The guy who had just jumped out of his drive commented how hard he had to press the brakes, but coming from my unassisted K series car, it felt perfectly natural. 

 

The car seemed to have much less roll than my standard Elise, but if anything it was an even more compliant ride.  The race engineer their put it down to how long the wishbones are, all I can say is it was good. If asked to put it in Lotus terms, I'd say at least as flat through the corners as my old Exige S, but slightly more comfortable than my current K.

 

The steering was lovely and crisp.

 

At 6'3, with long legs I was much more comfortable in the Zenos, as the seats go back farther than an Elise.  

 

The gear lever is really high up though and the test car had exposed linkages, so you couldn't rest your elbow on the "transmission" tunnel.  The placement was a bit more like my old Civic Type-R than any other manual I've driven.

 

 

The big question in my mind now is could I live without a roof? 

 

 

[KurtB]

To answer your last question: I had a Sylva Pheonix Clubmans Mk4 for a while as a daily. It had no screen, I had nothing more than a leather jacket and a neck scarf for "protection" from the elements. Rain up to 30mph felt like pins and needles and above that speed felt like being media blasted! I experienced new levels of cold. Thankfully it doesn't seem to rain that much, so you'll be ok. If it's a toy rather than a daily, you have options to drive it when you like. I suppose it depends if you're more cat or more dog....

[Simon Mac]

Definitely weekend toy, not a daily

 

I would like to "tour" in it though. This year I did a jaunt to Monaco in the Elise, the roof was off unless it was parked up. If it rained I just drove faster

 

So actually lack of windscreen is more problematic