Sprint For Sale - and will be for ages

[trw99]

http://www.pistonheads.com/SALES/2803519.htm

Errm...nope, I don't think so! ?45,000 for a resto and furthermore, it was originally a FHC. Someone is trying to push prices higher and this is way over.

Tim

[hatman]

http://www.pistonheads.com/SALES/2803519.htm

Errm...nope, I don't think so! ?45,000 for a resto and furthermore, it was originally a FHC. Someone is trying to push prices higher and this is way over.

Tim

Could this perhaps be a sign that the classic-car price bubble of the early eighties is starting to re-form?

[terryp]

Chassis looks nice and shiny though

[GrUmPyBoDgEr]

I agree that the price is high but that man does seem to know what to do to Elans.
I wonder what prices Elans are actually selling for in GB now?
Anyone care to put up some prices?
My very non-standard S4 Zetec has been valued for insurance purposes at 15k for years now, but the latest valuation puts it at 27.5k so it appears that "big things" are happening in our little World.

Cheers
John

[alexblack13]

Hi Guys, ....


John,

Your car should be at least ?30k on Insurance Valuation/cover. Try replacing it!!!! I have my one covered for 35k and if anything happened I would only just be getting my money back. I would be getting your valuation updated.

?45k is way over the top though. But that's the way they are heading. Don't know whether to be chuffed or not!! I am sure though that sitting with the car is way better than sitting with the money in a Bank! Average interest less than 2% unless one locks funds away for min 1 year..

That's getting off topic so I'll shut up now..

Alex B....

[GrUmPyBoDgEr]

Hi Guys, ....


John,

Your car should be at least ?30k on Insurance Valuation/cover. Try replacing it!!!! I have my one covered for 35k and if anything happened I would only just be getting my money back. I would be getting your valuation updated.

?45k is way over the top though. But that's the way they are heading. Don't know whether to be chuffed or not!! I am sure though that sitting with the car is way better than sitting with the money in a Bank! Average interest less than 2% unless one locks funds away for min 1 year..

That's getting off topic so I'll shut up now..

Alex B....

Hmmmm! that was an up to date valuation but if, as you say, I ask for 30k how much would the premium rise by?
That question was rhetorical by the way
I've kept practically all of the receipts for the rebuild of my car but have promised myself never to do the sums & find out how much the critter has cost me.
I'm on medication for blood pressure as it is

Back to the point; do you think that somebody would actually pay 35k for your totally immaculate Sprint?
How much would you get from someone like, let's say, Matty?
Also rhetorically asked

[alexblack13]

It will never go to a dealer. End of.. They (dealers) will struggle to make any money out of me!

I was merely trying to point out what they would cost to replace. I'm certainly not doing it again and probably would not have done it if I knew the costs 1st...

I'm not sure what one would get for a nice well restored car but Matty seams to sell them at quite good money?

I think there will be a market there but not at 45K...

I have a rough idea of what you would want for yours if it were for sale & I recon' it would not be cheap.

Premium wise it was not crazy to insure though John.. I'm still well under 200 quid. I do think you are under valued..You could be a bit out of pocket if you lost it.

Al' ........

[Elanintheforest]

Paul has sold a few Elans recently for top money, and they've all been Peter Day restorations. You have to see these cars to appreciate just how stunning they are. Peter went to great lengths in order to produce a car to as close to original specification as possible, unlike other restorers who cut corners and compromise on originality. Peter had tucked away a lot of stuff that others simply didn't have, like carpet, trim, lamps, brackets, cables and a thousand other bits and pieces..... even little screws, all from the factory when the Elan stuff was being chucked out.

The level of restoration he achieved simply cannot be replicated today as a lot of the original bits and pieces are unavailable. So when he sold the yellow S4 convertible last year for ?29k to David (Heuer on here), and the Plus 2 to Chris Evans for about ?24k, he sold two cars that were as close as it was possible to being a new Elan as it was possible to make....and those numbers sound cheap to me. Firstly, it would cost ?50k to do a similar restoration today (plus buying the car in the first place), and secondly, it couldn't be done as well due to lack of original parts.

He does have a third one which is still for sale....a Sprint Coupe for ?35k...or the price of a bottom of the range new Lotus. Go and check it out, then tell me if you think it's too expensive!

There will never be another virtually unused Peter Day restoration, as he stopped a few years ago.

So I really don't think that you can look at a few high-price sales of some of the best Elans in the world and say that prices are rocketing up. The price of many classic cars, including Elans, has risen over the past 18 months or so, but thinking that a reasonable well restored Elan is now worth ?30k or ?40k because Paul Matty has sold a few for that price would I fear be a big mistake!

As for the Sprint in question being worth ?45k....I would imagine half that to be closer to reality.

Mark

[Craig Elliott]

I heard a rumour that there's a dealer currently listing a late +2 with very low mileage etc for around the same money. Suspect that will be in the showroom for longer than the Sprint! That said look at the prices of other cars (I'm thinking of Healeys etc) from the same era and compare their performance and cost now with Elans of both sorts and, relatively, Lotus' look cheap so may be prices are heading in that direction.

As with other posts I'm not sure what to make of it, if nothing else it should mean that more get restored and fewer get broken up. Which is a good thing.

As an aside - Tim, how did you find out that it was originally a coupe?

C

[alexblack13]

Hi Guys,
Yep. point taken Mark, BUT... what about when the car you are doing has the vast majority of all of its original parts? Sure I too switched a couple of bits.. Horns / Air-filter and Fasteners is about all. And Sue M's carpet... And now a 5 speed box I've kept the 4 speed and its relevant bits though..

I still have the air-filter that came off but the carpets and horns were goosed....And the filter is rusted through. So that's why they were changed. fasteners were changed here n there with original ones where I had them.

The car had an Alternator when I got it.

I looked at a car at Matty's. It was on his magic roundabout. V nice. BUT.. There were some very non original bits on it. Door seals looked wrong. Radio was wrong. Chromed & Polished wiper arms?? for EG. I was a bit surprised because I was expecting perfection & It was not IMHO.... Still a beauty though.. But one of their own resto's, and like all the rest, he is there to make money. And some of the bits he sells is anything but the best available. I have returned a few parts to them.

Still be a bugger to replace a nice car though , so I still stick to my opinion that a good one need to be at least ?30k insurance valued.

Al' ....

[worzel]

Hi

What's anything actually worth? Perhaps "modern" buyers ( a generation or two younger) look for things other than pure originality- particularly when they've so many other more modern worthy competing cars to choose from. Maybe less "enthusiastic" owners - enthusiastic in the sense of rolling up their sleeves etc make their purchase decisions with a different set of criteria in mind. I've lost count of the number of people (a bit younger than I) who've had lifts in my car (a Sprint) who I'd class as car nuts and who have told me they couldn't get used to a car without a radio/air con/power steering/cup holders/large glove box etc. Even simply getting into the car put off some of them and virtually all remarked that they felt vulnerable being so low. I can't see many younger buyers paying serious money for a quirky "old car" no matter how original when the market is saturated with pretty good rivals that "deliver" everything as std.

Just my opinion.

John

[pereirac]

Peter used to charge over ?20k to restore an Elan in the 1980s so perhaps ?45k for an Elan restored to the same level these days is not that far off?

[Elanintheforest]

The classic car market is certainly very strange, and mixed up with re-capturing youth emotions as well as true engineering history and marque appreciation. I was at a classic auction today?I go to quite a few?and it?s fascinating seeing what gets folks excited and what cars get ignored.

Two Ford examples came along, which confound your view a little, John. A Mk 2 Lotus Cortina was sold for ?10k. It was a complete shed, with a cheap respray, micro-blistering, filler showing though the paint, missing many original parts and just so wrong in many ways. On the other hand, there was a mint Sierra Cosworth, an early 2 door car, 3 owners, totally original and just stunning?it sold for ?8.5k.

Both cars are as rare as each other, and I love the old Lotus Cortinas?.but the Cosworth was breathtaking, and nobody was interested. Perhaps the guys who would have been interested are still too young to stump up the cash for their ?dream car? from the 80s?.they would certainly have been at work in order to pay the mortgage and bring up the kids!

But the pre-war Austin Seven 2 seaters and MGs still attract huge attention and high prices, and pre-war exotica has a very enthusiastic following. Perfect 1960s Healeys, MGAs and TRs also selling in the ?20k to ?30k range. These are all iconic Brit sports cars, and it seems, always have been and always will be. The poor old MGB seems to struggle at ?9k for a perfect car.

One car that seems to have dropped from favour is the Triumph Stag. I remember these in the 90s selling for ?25k or so, in perfect restored condition. There was a yellow car there, low miles and low number of owners, that was genuinely jaw dropping, such was the quality of the restoration. I couldn?t fault it. It was up there with an E type, in terms of levels of finish and detail, and it fetched ?11k. The E Type was passed on at ?70k. It would have cost just as much to restore the Stag as it did the E Type, but the poor old Stag has always been denigrated as a bit of a hairdressers car, and that seems to have stuck.

Then a perfect XK8 goes through for ?5k, and a Ferrari 456 with 34k on the clock goes for ?22k??..that?s when I started to shake my head in disbelief!

So whilst I think I understand what cars fetch what sort of money, the reasoning behind that perceived value is complex and more to do with re-capturing the youth than the engineering appreciation. I?m sure that I will rue the day that I didn?t buy a perfect Cosworth for less than 10 grand, or tuck away a load of XK8s for ?5k each, or buy one of the most beautiful Ferraris ever made for?..?20k ish?I still can?t believe that one!

But one thing that comes through loud and clear in these auctions is that it?s the originality and provenance of the desirable cars that really send the prices rocketing, as those are the aspects of the car that most appeals to that ?re-capturing of youth? emotion. The perfect car would be brand new, fresh out of the factory and totally original?..or as close as it can be. They don?t exist, so the next best thing is that one owner low mileage car, which has been restored to absolutely factory and original condition.

It?s about emotion, and not logic, otherwise instead of driving a Lotus Elan we?d all have a Z4 M BMW?.wouldn?t we?

[trw99]

The Sprint in the advert above is, I believe 0604E, which left the factory in Gold Leaf colours.

It was for sale at a Buckinghamshire garage last year, finished in mono yellow and with Minilite wheels. The garage said that it had had three owners and showed 4800 miles on the clock, but it had been around once. The third owner had it from 78 to 09. Before it was painted yellow it had been repainted blue over white. At one stage in it's life it had the registration number NG 7098, though it is back to being REC 973L now.

The current vendor bought it in March this year. It probably cost him around ?15-17,000. He will probably do a jolly good restoration, that might cost him another ?15,000 odd. Add in his premium and I still can't see the justification for a ?45,000 asking price. The car just is not that special.

I'll give you two examples of cars that are. In 2007 a factory special order S4/Sprint, with a genuine 3200 miles, original owner and in as new condition having been kept in a heated garage, was sold for ?48,500 to a Lotus collector. Last year a European Sprint was put onto the market, again by it's original owner, for Euros 45,000; it was special because it only had 16500 kms on it and had been laid up since 1978. It has been withdrawn from the market now as the owner has decided to keep it for the time being.

Both these cars are totally original and have proven providence from new, both elements highly prized by the classic market. And I was writing this as Mark posted his piece above!

Tim

[Mazzini]

I was wondering when Peter Day's name would come up, I agree with Mark in that his restorations were without out doubt the best of the best. I was a great fan of Mick Millers paintwork, but I think overall Peter just pipped him.

I'm sure the restored Sprint will be a fine car, but what's with the silver chassis?