Why is this better than that?

was your lotus hand made? is your lotus made of the same quality tubing? is your lotus certified by a racing body such as NJS? if the answer is yes to all these then the only difference is the track ends, so get your ends switched for £50 or so and flog it for a small fortune on ebay.

Why does something being hand made make it better? I here much about something called '531' apart from being lighter (is it?) what difference does it have to my cromo 4130 (or something like that). Is NJS like Corgi? My bike has lasted 12 years of of daily riding and still works fine.

Are we simply buying these names for image based reasons?*

*There is nothing wrong with this if this is the case.