They See Me Rollin’…

I woke up this morning and realized I had finally lost enough hair and gained the appropriate amount of wrinkles and self-loathing to qualify as being eligible for a full-blown mid-life crisis. Not knowing how else to deal with it, I did the only thing I’d ever been told to do when faced with the dilemma of impending old age…

…so, what do you peeps think of my new wheels? It’s a Lotus, baby!

Portrait of a Midlife Crisis

No. I didn't actually go out and spend $67,000 on a glorified go-kart. And if I did decide to buy myself a shiny new racecar, I certainly wouldn't have chosen one that was lemon-drop yellow.

But I did get to take a ride in this glossy beauty last week and while I definitely had a blast finding out what a Lotus Exige S capable of, I can’t really see why anyone would actually purchase one. It’s not that I don’t like sports cars or that I think it’s a bad idea to make a car out of plastic and aluminum; it’s just that for that kind of money, I would want something that didn’t feel like it might fly apart at any moment.

See, the manufacturer wanted the car to be as light as possible because it only holds a 4-cylinder engine. In order to get a four-banger to go from zero-to-sixty in four seconds, they needed to do some serious skimping somewhere. And since it is every bit as important for the car to be outwardly pretty as it is for it to haul ass, the interior is what ends up suffering the most. In other words, what the Lotus Exige S boasts in external beauty, it makes up for with a serious lack of anything resembling luxury on the inside*. Even things like personal comfort and painless entry/exit were thrown out the window in favor of getting the car down to its optimal racing weight.

It was an immensely satisfying drive, though. The seats may have been thin and cushionless and the engine may have been situated directly behind our heads, but that’s all fine when you’re rolling in such a sexy car. But as we were flying down I-5, I suddenly became acutely aware that we were being closely watched. By everyone. I chalked all the attention up to our ludicrous speed at first, but the stares didn’t stop even after we left the interstate and were just tooling along city streets. Fact is, everyone loves to look at an exotic car. It’s really unfortunate that most men who own such fine automobiles eventually convince themselves the looks are actually for them. But I digress.

What I want to impart to you with this post is that if you ever get a chance to roll in an exotic sports car, do take it, because someone paid an obscene amount of money for that ride and it just makes economical sense to take advantage of someone else’s ridiculous spending habits (and grab yourself a wicked adrenalin rush to boot), especially when Mr. Moneybags is outright asking you to.

Just don’t kid yourself. A sexy Lotus only makes you look attractive if you’ve already got it going on. If you’re 41 and balding like me, it just makes you look insecure and ripe for armed robbery.

*Not entirely true. They do come with a pretty nice Alpine stereo system.