Daily driving

This is a common forum question so this topic covers practical advice for those that want to use their Elise as a daily driver. Reasons to do it include:

• The Elise is quite mild mannered in traffic
• Other drivers move over for an Elise far more readily than for anything with 4 doors
• It's hard to climb into a shed when you have such a great car parked next to it
• Pretty good fuel economy thanks to low weight and hatchback engine.
• Chicks (ok, small boys) dig it

You can't easily make a practical car more fun to drive, but there are a few tweaks you can do to the elise to make it easier to live with. These include:

• Hard top. As well as leaking less than the soft top, hard tops offer better thermal insulation which is great for cold days.
• HID lights are really useful in winter
• Snowsocks and collapsible spade for those REALLY wintery snow days
• Armourfend is great if you like your paintwork - it is pricey to fit, but keeps the car looking good and will save you a full respray.
• Polycarb foglight covers - they are cheaper than replacing the lights. Similarly if your S1 does not have headlight covers, then you should consider investing in a pair.
• Decent stereo - Active Sub, steering column-mounted remote control. Sony RM-X4S is good.
• Quieter exhaust / induction is good - That induction kit and de-cat pipe really don't add much power!
• Jawbone Prime bluetooth headset - be safe and easily understood even with the roof down, thanks to clever noise reduction tech
• Decent mount for satnav. The simplest solution for S1 drivers is a Krussell magnet mount on the spare light button - very discreet and works perfectly, but there are other solutions too - Brodit do good mounts.
• Improved seats (Standard base model S1 seats lack padding. S1 111S seats and S2 seats are more comfortable, as are the later style Pro-bax seats.).