Donington 2007
17th – 18th March 2007, Donington Park

LEW attended Club Lotus, Lotus Festival for the seventh year in a row on both Saturday and Sunday 17-18th March 2007. The format of the show has remained unchanged, but remains a good day out for all Esprit Enthusiasts. The first big meeting of the year and nice to get out after a winter where most Esprits see little action. This year was different from the last six, LEW and LEF joined together and had a stand at the show! So no more hanging around in the carpark!

   

Between LEW and LEF we've bought an events tent with our logo's on that can be taken to any event to give us a meeting point, a focus for any event and somewhere to shelter from the upredictable English weather! We had a few bits for sale, including calendars, mugs, stickers, books, DVD's and magazines. We also had info on ClubLEW and the LEF. We had a presentation running throughout the weekend to advertise both LEW and LEF to those who were unaware of us. LEW's Esprit was there and also Troy's S3, so we even had a little hardware to look over!

  

LEW's Esprit was popular throught the event, with the ladies mistaking it for some sort of resting device! With all the major work now completed on our car, we'll be bringing you some of the details in the coming weeks! There's been a lot of new bits over the past months!

  

As this was a two day event for LEW and LEF, a stop over was require and feeding. 24 Esprit owners (incluidng 2 wags) hit the curry houses of Derby on Saturday night, which was a great success. The entertainment continued back at the hotel until 3am, we pizza was needed to keep energy levels high! But this is just the sort of stuff we do away from the show as a community!

  

Club Lotus also launched a new DVD at the show celebrating 50 years of Club Lotus. Produced by the man who brought you Addiction for Life. This new DVD will be available through LEW very shortly and of course has plenty of Esprit content. Look out for it on Esprit4Sale.co.uk very soon.

  

Back at the show all the usual suspects were attending. SWLC again had a huge stand and did some good sales in wheels and tyres. PNM had plenty of brake kits on show and we love their Monstor 6 kit that we currently have on our Esprit! Espritism.com's first show was carried out from our stand, which made it easy to introduce owners to a great parts supply!

  

Lotusbits, Christopher Neils, Paul Matty, and Hangar 111 were all there helping owners to get what they needed. Plenty of advice was freely available from the experts. Lotus were also present, with a large stand and plenty of parts to sell. Also plenty of info, as Senior Technical Author, Dave Massy was on hand to help out. It's great to have Lotus at the last few shows.

       

There was the JPS club showing of two Esprit JPS's! Unfortunately we didn't get the chance to chat and find out more, but hopefully we'll catch up with them at somepoint, as you really don't see many original JPS Esprits about.

  

There was also a convertible Esprit on show. This was the first time we'd seen one in the flesh! Not to everyone's taste, but it's got enough Esprit in it for us to take an interest. Unfortunately we'd hear this was owned by a company we'd prefer not to deal with, so these pictures are all we have from the event. But still, it's nice to see one in the flesh.

  

  

The Carpark
This is normally the main focus every year for Esprit owners, but this changed this year. Firstly due to the fact we had a meeting point inside where everyone could hang out and meet up and secondly due to the weather. Esprit day is normally Sunday, as the Elan M100's take over the carpark on a Saturday. Sunday was Mother's Day and the weather wasn't good, so although there was a good turn out of Esprit. It wasn't the best we'd had. Also it was bitterly cold, so inside was the better place to be.

   

We did venture out a couple of times and took a few pictures (mostly Saturday). Still nice to see plenty of different Esprit models and as ever plenty of cars from mainland Europe who'd driven over to attend the show.

         

This was our first really official year at Donington and although we throw it together last minute with the LEF, it was a great success. We intend to build on this next year and move forward making the show better and better each year.

Special thanks to all those who helped out during the weekend and to all those who attended. As ever the Esprit community proves to be a wonderful group of people who make these events worth attending.