The Lotus Chronicles

In 2013, Rob Siegel (a.k.a. "The Hack Mechanic") wandered waaaay outside of his German car comfort zone and blew the advance from his first book on a car that captivated him as an adolescent-a 1974 Lotus Europa Twin Cam Special. The car hadn't been on the road since 1979, had a seized engine, and was purchased sight-unseen, but it was complete and had only 24,000 miles on it. In the week after it arrived, Rob feverishly ripped out the drivetrain, but the project soon ran into molasses due to the fact that all options for rebuilding or replacing the low-production Lotus-Ford Twin Cam engine would've cost more than he'd paid for the car. It was six years before the car was running, during which Rob lost his job and changed careers, necessitating that if work on the Lotus proceeded at all, costs needed to be relentlessly contained. All of this was chronicled on Facebook in a series of posts titled "The Lotus Chronicles," in which Rob's friends and acquaintances-the Hack Mechanic faithful-chimed in on the process, offering advice, encouragement, ridicule, scorn, every Lucas joke known to man and woman, and insight on why Lotus really does stand for "lots of trouble, usually serious."The Lotus Chronicles is a collection of those posts, woven together with sections providing context and perspective. It's about passion, perseverance, the balance between "doing it right" and getting 'er done, what it takes to drag a project across the finish line, and coming to finally understand an offhand comment a man made to Rob when he first saw that Europa when he was 13 years old: "A car like that, you can get SEX out of."