Value of a garage find?

[denicholls2]

Will you gain a return on investment? Absolutely not, unless education or a big wide smile is your return.

Can you do it? Unless you are completely incompetent mechanically, you certainly can. You have a worldwide list of question-answerers, and the basic machine is nearly as uncomplicated as they get. Chunky's design philosophy helps a lot here. Outside of some cramped working areas and trickiness with cylinder head work best left to machinists anyway, there's nothing on a Lotus the novice should fear except having the time to complete the work. And very little of that work is time-sensitive.

If you're doing a checkbook restoration, however, you need to make sure the recipient of the check knows (and cares) what he or she is doing. And experts for a particular marque rightly charge a premium for their expertise.

Personally, I'd rather have only myself to blame for most work. Not having to make a profit on the time spent to accomplish tasks best done slowly is a significant advantage in them getting done right. It merely involves not expecting to bill your invested time to some future owner.

I chanced upon a Lotus ReMarque article about resurrecting a Twink Europa over the weekend that you might find encouraging (purists cover your eyes). A fellow (Brent Powell) bought a running but unsightly example, restored the chassis, sold off the Twincam in favor of Toyota power, upgraded the transaxle for the increased output, added air conditioning (using a BMW compressor) and fit his "restoration" into a reported parts and outside labor cost (after selling off the original bits) of about $4500.

His car is not original, for sure, and I suspect that like me he did not pay close attention to obtaining exact replacements for the cheap (at the time) original materials used in places like the interior. But he has a car that is reliable, more powerful, and likely more economical to run, yet is faithful to the original concept if not the original details. And at a price he could afford to pay.

While purists may not like the fact that it is technically no longer a Type 72, I believe it's a distinct improvement on becoming spare parts and a derelict shell.

[types26/36]

While purists may not like the fact that it is technically no longer a Type 72, I believe it's a distinct improvement on becoming spare parts and a derelict shell.

Would that be a F1 TYPE 72 or an Elise S2 Type 72.