The Ultimate Leasing Machine vs Chapman

If you want to sell on price and not value, then you'd better have a good price!
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Received the following marketing email from Lotus:

A new Lotus Evora is a very tempting proposition with its instant feedback and instinctive responsiveness putting agility and finesse at your fingertips. Now a new Evora from your local Lotus dealer is simply irresistible because it's currently available from $799 a month*. Just one drive and you'll want to give in to temptation right away.

FOR THE LATEST LOTUS EVORA OFFERS, TO FIND YOUR LOCAL DEALER AND TO BOOK A TEST DRIVE, VISIT LOTUSCARSOFFERS.COM.

So I visited there and found these offered lease terms:

Sample quote based on model year 2010 Lotus Evora 2+2, reasonably equipped with an MSRP of $72,435. 48 month lease x $798.00 per month = $38,304.00 total monthly payments. Based on 7,500 miles a year; lessee responsible for $1.00 per mile over 7,500 miles per year. Total due at lease inception is $6,692.00 which includes 1st month's lease payment of $798.00, capital cost reduction of $4,999.00, acquisition fee of $895.00. Closed ended lease, purchase option of $30,958.00 at lease end. Advertised offer requires dealer contribution. Higher MSRP vehicle will increase lease price. Prices exclude applicable taxes, title, other options and dealer charges. Lessee responsible for insurance. Subject to credit approval. Applies to Lotus Evora registered before September, 30 2011, please contact your Lotus dealer for full details."

To which I (ineffectively, I'm sure) emailed them the following response:

This is not a particularly attractive lease offer. Your lease runs over 160% higher than the current BMW lease offer on the top of the line Z4.

If you are going to try to move your cars off of dealers' lots based on lease payments, you'll have to do a lot better then your current "deal".

Last month I leased a BMW Z4 35is, for 24 months at $363 a month (includes CT sales tax), 10K miles per year with extra miles at . I only had to put down the first months payment and the requisite security deposit.

Total cost worked out to just under $0.44 a mile, or another way to look at it is ~$4,400 a year for a car that stickered for $72,475.

Your lease, by comparison, works out to just under $11,900 per year including CT sales tax, or about $1.57 per mile) for an Evora that stickers for $72,435.

And here's a photo of my ride for the next 24 months.

"The F-Word is like a Corvette".

"The F-Word is like a Corvette".
Seven Things Designers Can Learn from Stand Up Comics

The tools of a stand up comic are words. Some are good for every job. Some are more powerful and should be used sparingly. All of them are potentially crutches. Louis C.K. says that Jerry Seinfeld once told him, "The F word is like a Corvette." "And I thought," says Louis C.K., "that means that it's fast and it's cool and it's got power and thrust to it. But then I thought, wait a minute, this guy grew up on Long Island and collects Porsches. So to him, a Corvette is a piece of shit, with a Chevy engine, just a flashy bullshit car." ... Seinfeld says he stopped using the F word when he realized it had become a crutch. Of course, one man's crutch is another man's secret weapon. Or, as Louis C.K. observes, "Where I grew up, a Corvette is an awesome car."

Funkywrenching

A funny anonymous confession posted as a comment on BoingBoing.

I hereby confess that it was I in moments of childish mischief that occasionally put a couple of yellow Lego bricks into the hopper of the injection moulding machine at a Defence contractor in the late 80's during weekend overtime after the pub lunch...

I'm sorry my actions caused such mayhem.

I'm sorry to the operator who had to strip the machine every time the pretty black moulded connectors it produced suddenly started streaking yellow on a Monday morning.

Sorry also to management from shop floor to senior for all the friction caused between your departments during the down time.

Sorry to the no less than four industrial engineers whom scratched their heads as to why.

Sorry to the quality control engineers as their math and charts failed to predict the failures.

Sorry to the supplier of the black ABS pellet stock the machine was normally fed with leading to a revamp of their quality control mechanisms with every shipment to our company visually checked for 'yellow pellet' contamination.

Sorry I ran out of yellow bricks and started using white.