Lots of trouble usually serious - Lotus Elite Project

3

3leftovercrest

Member
Messages
310
My Elite.. 1979…

Absolute 70’s p**n.

more positive and comments on this one from other road users than any other car I’ve owned.

Go for it!!

Stu
 

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Hawk13

Hawk13

Member
Messages
1,471
Never liked them when they came out but they are really growing on me ..... probably not to the point of ever wanting to own one but you never know.
 
Gazcw

Gazcw

Member
Messages
7,791
zagatoes30 said:
Thanks all, it's a 1978 Lotus Elite 503 - so manual with aircon and power steering.

Currently owned by an Italian friend, who needs the space for his Ape business. The car is complete but in bits, engine was stripped and rebuilt some time ago but it needs both water and fuel pump, interior was stripped and sent to the trimmers so comes with new leather seats, door cards and new carpet. Carbs have just been serviced and rebuilt and it comes with lots of new parts like seals for lights and doors etc. Most importantly chassis and body look to be in good condition, yes it needs a repaint but no major cracks or damage in the fibreglass.

Just need to agree the price but its not silly money and its Irish registered so no duty, VRT to contend with, a rare thing over here.
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Was it the elite or eclat that ate diffs? Mate had one years ago and it was forever having transmission work.
 
zagatoes30

zagatoes30

Member
Messages
20,975
Gazcw said:
Was it the elite or eclat that ate diffs? Mate had one years ago and it was forever having transmission work.
Click to expand...

Eclat and Elite are fundamentally the same underneath os if one impacted so will the other. Gearboxes changed to a Getrag unit on the S2 versions but this is an S1 so the BMC derived, Lotus tweaked unit
 
zagatoes30

zagatoes30

Member
Messages
20,975
Andyk said:
Really excited for you Andy. Hope it’s all good as looking forward to the seeing the project from start to finish.
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Me too, I best go and find the Lotus equivalent of SM I think I am going to need all the help I can get
 
mjheathcote

mjheathcote

Centenary Club
Messages
9,038
96668

My Dad's new Excel that followed the Eclat/Elite but with many Toyota parts rather than BL parts!
Later followed by an Esprit S4s which my brother in law now owns, and I had an Elise S1 111s at the same time.
It was good to borrow the Esprit, and hand it back to my Dad, without all the bills, which were many...!
 
zagatoes30

zagatoes30

Member
Messages
20,975
Watched SELOC get drowned by the TVR club at one Le Mans, the SELOC team turned up with a swimming pool, one of those big frame ones, it took them almost a day to fill and the next day a hot one they gloated to everyone how chilled they were. Next morning about 6:00am a TVR was attached to the frame and then proceeded to drive away pulling the pool apart and releasing x gallons of water through out the SELOC tents they spent the rest of that day drying all their kit.
 
F

flexwing

Member
Messages
258
I had one of these (501)and have fond memories. Handling is excellent but reliability was woeful. Mainly electrical issues. They can handle a lot more power and it's quite common to fit a V8. Hated the interior with its plastic wood!
 
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