I was offered this car from a member off the Lotus forum for a price I simply couldn't turn down,so yesterday I made the 7 hour round trip (Thanks to the M6 being closed where we wanted to go 
) to collect my next Lotus
After a long, dark (And wet ) trip home, I am now the proud owner of 'IP5' - The car is G394 KEX, As some of you may notice the reg number is 3 numbers before the original red press car (G397 KEX). My car was one of the very last pre production cars and was used for some of the final bits of durability testing (Lotus used 9 cars as final testing cars, which they took off the production line, all called IP 1-9); the archivist at Lotus confirmed that one weekend it drove to Rome and back and has been featured in a few magazines/press releases for press photos etc.
The good bits:
Undamaged S2 hood
Hi Spec 4 pot brake conversion
S2 galvanised wishbones all nice and clean and rust free
Refurbished “Opera” headlights
Intact A pillar seals
The only modifications it has are:
The 4 pots
Braided brake hoses
Stainless rear silencer
K&N panel filter
Ben has really taken care of it - it needs a little tidying in places but for a 23 year old Lotus it's in fantastic condition - a real credit to him
So what's it like?
Well so far I have driven it the 3 hours home, to work and back (24 mile round trip) and since the Sun has been out I popped for a trip around my local back roads - the car is such good fun! They are always compared to an Elise, which is unfair as it really is a different cars.
It has very neutral handing, good feedback (Not really surprising being a Lotus) but the engine is the real surprise - yes it's laggy, but it's an 80's turbo motor so no surprise there, but once above 3000 rpm it really flys and sounds fantastic, with the combination of a stainless exhaust and wastegate chatter.
Plans are to continue with what Ben was doing - keeping it up together, tidying and generally making it as a nice example as possible.
If you are interested, the history of the Elan is quite interesting, I will dig out the link later and link it here - it has the full history of the Elan and it reveals a whole lot of info!
) to collect my next Lotus After a long, dark (And wet
) trip home, I am now the proud owner of 'IP5' - The car is G394 KEX, As some of you may notice the reg number is 3 numbers before the original red press car (G397 KEX). My car was one of the very last pre production cars and was used for some of the final bits of durability testing (Lotus used 9 cars as final testing cars, which they took off the production line, all called IP 1-9); the archivist at Lotus confirmed that one weekend it drove to Rome and back and has been featured in a few magazines/press releases for press photos etc.The good bits:
Undamaged S2 hood
Hi Spec 4 pot brake conversion
S2 galvanised wishbones all nice and clean and rust free
Refurbished “Opera” headlights
Intact A pillar seals
The only modifications it has are:
The 4 pots
Braided brake hoses
Stainless rear silencer
K&N panel filter
Ben has really taken care of it - it needs a little tidying in places but for a 23 year old Lotus it's in fantastic condition - a real credit to him
So what's it like?
Well so far I have driven it the 3 hours home, to work and back (24 mile round trip) and since the Sun has been out I popped for a trip around my local back roads - the car is such good fun! They are always compared to an Elise, which is unfair as it really is a different cars.
It has very neutral handing, good feedback (Not really surprising being a Lotus) but the engine is the real surprise - yes it's laggy, but it's an 80's turbo motor so no surprise there, but once above 3000 rpm it really flys and sounds fantastic, with the combination of a stainless exhaust and wastegate chatter.
Plans are to continue with what Ben was doing - keeping it up together, tidying and generally making it as a nice example as possible.
If you are interested, the history of the Elan is quite interesting, I will dig out the link later and link it here - it has the full history of the Elan and it reveals a whole lot of info!
