I have had a number of funny foreign vehicles and toured with them all. Volvo and Volkswagen (type 3 of course) station wagons aside, they all were fairly space limited for luggage. My MGB had a cavernous trunk almost completely filled with a full sized spare. My Triumph TR7 had a trunk which would take a carefully folded human body (mine once) but not really much better than the B. Volkswagen Beetles had you using the rear seats. Only my Peugeot 504 had a non-pre-filled, cavernous trunk. But you would hardly call that a small sports car, supremely comfortable though.
The Lotus Europa is tiny, very tiny but it actually has a quite a bit of luggage space. Way more than the Elan and any modern Lotus, except perhaps their just announced SUV (ugh!). I was thinking about this as I was driving along. There really isn’t another car like it. Mine is an S1 and has cavernous door cavities as well, luxury! You S2 and up owners can stuff tings behind you seats so no complaints there either.
My current tour has had rain virtually every day, many times all day long. The single wiper does a great job. There are a few dribbles here and there, all good fun for any sports car enthusiast. The air flow keeps the side and rear windows completely clear.
Heat is great as long as it is above freezing and you don’t have a 160 degree thermostat installed. Takes a bit of time to defog things on a wet morning but all complete clear once under way.
Troubles? Something always happens, true. On this trip a reverse light bulb came loose and shorted the power to ground. Took out another fuse unnoticed while fixing it and so lost the speedometer for 500 klicks as I drive by the GPS. Two fuses and a litre and a half of oil in 6k of driving — some done with significant brio— not bad, not bad at all.
All this to say, take your Europa out for a long tour. You might just have an amazing time.
