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tipo158
My preface on all of this is "do what you want". I am only going to note what Lotus or Lotus owners/enthusiasts call things and make suggestions.
I think Elan system works as it is - all 60s/70s models entered with S1/2/3/4/Sprint (and the appropriate [Type xx]) so they separate nicely from the M100. I'm not keen on "M100 Elan" because I don't think that's the name people will look for - it may be a common usage nickname, but this is unofficial use for convenience.
I am confused. Here you are arguing against a commonly used name like "M100 Elan", but below are arguing for a made-up name like Type M117.
My opinion is that it will have little impact. "M100 Elan" will come up in a search for "Elan". The only place it would make a difference is in the Model list where it wouldn't be grouped with the other Elans.
By the way, it might be useful to give [M100] to both our Kia Elans???
Is that a chassis or model designation? Kia bought the tooling and molds from Lotus and built the cars themselves. Unless your DB can cross-reference fields between mfgs (so the model is a Kia, but the chassis/product is a Lotus), it doesn't make sense to link them. Besides, Kia tweeked enough of the car that it really is a Kia. Then again, IMCDB does not list Caterham as a mfg, so those cars
The bigger point about replacing all [Mxxx] with just [xxx] - I'm uneasy, despite its claimed greater precision. I'm not sure it's an actual problem, but it would also force us into some sort of uneasy M100 Elan title to keep the M100 reference and there could be a tail-wagging-the-dog outcome.
"Claimed greater precision"? Do you want me to quote books citing the difference between an M project number and a Type number at Lotus? Do I need to get someone from Lotus (or who used to work for Lotus) to send a statement confirming this?
If a Lotus name includes "Type" and has an M number, it is an incorrect designation.
But looking through our [M111] and [M117] sets as blocks, I'm not sure we've got the usages totally correct - there seems to be some drift between similar Elise versions between the two codes and maybe a couple of Elise-related versions in [M111] which might have had different new codes we haven't discovered yet??
Type 111 is the original Elise built from 1996-2000(?). The front end looks somewhat like a Europa. That is the easy way to tell them apart from the later cars. As I have one, I also like to remind people that they are 400 lbs lighter than the later cars.
Type 117 is the second generation Elise. In early PR, it was called the Elise 2000, but that name didn't stick around long. The front end looks like the US cars with the wasp-ish headlights.
The US (Federal) Elise is the Type 121.
Before the name Elise was chosen, Lotus kinda fell in love with '111'. One proposed name for the car was One-Eleven. When they upgraded the Elise, the names of many of the submodels were a variation on '111' (like '111S'). They even did this with later Elises that have different Type numbers. It is kinda like (but not to the same degree) that the 911 gets applied to newer Porsches that are developments of the original 911.
Re M250 - see http://www.pistonheads.com/lotus/m250/m250-launch.htm for Lotus PR statements that its name was M250. But 118 type number would be useful addition - [118] or [M118]??
If the car had gone into production, it would not have been called the M250. For starters, it does not start with an 'E'. As I said, M numbers are internal project numbers.
Thanks.
I think Elan system works as it is - all 60s/70s models entered with S1/2/3/4/Sprint (and the appropriate [Type xx]) so they separate nicely from the M100. I'm not keen on "M100 Elan" because I don't think that's the name people will look for - it may be a common usage nickname, but this is unofficial use for convenience.
I am confused. Here you are arguing against a commonly used name like "M100 Elan", but below are arguing for a made-up name like Type M117.
My opinion is that it will have little impact. "M100 Elan" will come up in a search for "Elan". The only place it would make a difference is in the Model list where it wouldn't be grouped with the other Elans.
By the way, it might be useful to give [M100] to both our Kia Elans???
Is that a chassis or model designation? Kia bought the tooling and molds from Lotus and built the cars themselves. Unless your DB can cross-reference fields between mfgs (so the model is a Kia, but the chassis/product is a Lotus), it doesn't make sense to link them. Besides, Kia tweeked enough of the car that it really is a Kia. Then again, IMCDB does not list Caterham as a mfg, so those cars
The bigger point about replacing all [Mxxx] with just [xxx] - I'm uneasy, despite its claimed greater precision. I'm not sure it's an actual problem, but it would also force us into some sort of uneasy M100 Elan title to keep the M100 reference and there could be a tail-wagging-the-dog outcome.
"Claimed greater precision"? Do you want me to quote books citing the difference between an M project number and a Type number at Lotus? Do I need to get someone from Lotus (or who used to work for Lotus) to send a statement confirming this?
If a Lotus name includes "Type" and has an M number, it is an incorrect designation.
But looking through our [M111] and [M117] sets as blocks, I'm not sure we've got the usages totally correct - there seems to be some drift between similar Elise versions between the two codes and maybe a couple of Elise-related versions in [M111] which might have had different new codes we haven't discovered yet??
Type 111 is the original Elise built from 1996-2000(?). The front end looks somewhat like a Europa. That is the easy way to tell them apart from the later cars. As I have one, I also like to remind people that they are 400 lbs lighter than the later cars.
Type 117 is the second generation Elise. In early PR, it was called the Elise 2000, but that name didn't stick around long. The front end looks like the US cars with the wasp-ish headlights.
The US (Federal) Elise is the Type 121.
Before the name Elise was chosen, Lotus kinda fell in love with '111'. One proposed name for the car was One-Eleven. When they upgraded the Elise, the names of many of the submodels were a variation on '111' (like '111S'). They even did this with later Elises that have different Type numbers. It is kinda like (but not to the same degree) that the 911 gets applied to newer Porsches that are developments of the original 911.
Re M250 - see http://www.pistonheads.com/lotus/m250/m250-launch.htm for Lotus PR statements that its name was M250. But 118 type number would be useful addition - [118] or [M118]??
If the car had gone into production, it would not have been called the M250. For starters, it does not start with an 'E'. As I said, M numbers are internal project numbers.
Have fixed the Typ M117 typo.
Thanks.