Nice looking Sprint for sale

[barefoot]

Nothing to do with me but looks lovely will be interesting to see what it goes for....

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/LOTUS-ELAN-SPRINT ... 4a9f0a54bf

[Elanintheforest]

I think that I'd look closely at the car as it was 'restored' by Chris Neil in '92. This was the time he was building the Chris Neil Sprint out of new / repro parts, using donor wrecks. It may be one of those, or it could well be a Lotus....an inspection and a study of the history of the car would be enlightening.

Mark

[alexblack13]

Wow! Wonder how many of those are out there, and how many unsuspecting people have bought?

Thanks for showing us that Mark.

Going to the lotus show this year?

AB......

[512BB]

This car was for sale on Ebay last year, so the seller is either a trader, or fallen out of love with it within a year to 18 months. I remember it because i contacted the seller at the time, and mentioned that i once owned YLG 5J, a car that my old mucker Gavin now owns, who sometimes resides on here. The car was being sold from Uxbridge or Hillingdon if i recall, an old stomping ground of mine.

Leslie

[trw99]

It's OK Mark, this is a genuine Sprint and the work Christopher Neil did was to chop the roof off, as it left Hethel as a FHC in March 71, complete with one of the few forward facing cam covers. I have it in my records as being for sale last in Apr 08.

Tim

[Elanintheforest]

Well that's not much better, Tim...another bitza.

Dodgy ground, these Sprints. Kit cars and late S4s pretending to be the real deal and Coupes pretending to be convertibles.....your register is much required!!

Mark

[Frank Howard]

Coupes pretending to be convertibles.....

I just don't see what difference it makes as to whether the factory cut the top off or a subsequent owner did. Did the factory use special Lotus saws?

[trw99]

Frank

Interesting observation, because actually that is true, they did. The saws were developed in the late 1960's by Hewsnhaacker GmbH of Munchen Gladbach to a design that some have attributed to Tony Rudd, though intriguingly he was not at Lotus then, joining as Engineering Director (Designate) in 1970. Apparently the saws were not a great success as the teeth on the blade were modelled on the canine principle, as opposed to the more normal incisor principle. This resulted in slippage which, at an inappropriate moment, could lead to devastating consequences for one's bodywork.

And Mark, I think there was more dodgy ground around Lotus when they were building Elites and Type 26s - allegedly!



Tim

[Elanintheforest]

Hmmm, fair comment about the 26, but you couldn't do much about the Elite...try chopping the roof off and it would fall in half! Many, many more dodgy financial deals of course.

The point about it being a bitza, Frank, is that a converted Coupe isn't worth the same money as either a Coupe or a DHC. The advert doesn't say that it's a converted Coupe...so what else is being hidden? The market will pay top money for original cars...original colour, specification et al. any changes from this just drops the price.

Mark

[Frank Howard]

Mark,

My interpretation of what the market will pay is what someone actually pays for a car. Personally, I would be willing to pay a premium for a converted coupe as opposed to an original FHC and I am not alone. I have a friend in our local club who did just that. As he wanted a DHC and couldn't find one at a reasonable price, he purchased a FHC for less money (that I had previously passed on because it was a coupe and it had right hand steering) and paid dearly in parts and labor to chop the top off. Again, he really didn't want a FHC but he bought it because it was available for less money.

To those FHC owners who keep saying that FHCs are more valuable than DHCs, I have a question for you. If FHCs are more valuable, why hasn't anyone ever converted a DHC to a FHC? (Attaching a hard top doesn't count as that is not a conversion. It's simply adding on an accessory.)

OK, fire away!

[Elanintheforest]

The market probably differs slightly between the UK and the US. For a long time, the Coupe was the poor relation to the DHC by quite a long way, but the gap has narrowed, and now the Coupe is fairly rare. All other things being equal, a DHC is worth more than a Coupe over here, but only maybe ?1000 or so for a good car.

Top money for all classics is still given for originality; it doesn't matter if it's a Lotus, a Ferrari, a Jaguar or a Corvette. Any car that's had a change of colour or been converted from a Coupe to a convertible will always be worth less than a car that's totally original. A great example is the E Type over here, where a converted car is very difficult to sell, and is worth maybe 50% of a convertible. And like Elans, the E Type Coupes have caught up with the (original) convertibles.

Pure logic doesn't necessarily apply in the world of the classic car / antique / art / classic aircraft / any other collectable!

Mark

[trw99]

The market probably differs slightly between the UK and the US. Pure logic doesn't necessarily apply in the world of the classic car / antique / art / classic aircraft / any other collectable! Mark

That's true. One of my other interests is best English sporting shotguns (Beesley, Wilkes and Clarke for anyone interested). Here in the UK, a best gun with sleeved barrels, a process that allows an otherwise unsafe gun to be given new barrels from the chambers onwards, is valued very much less than a gun with shoot-able original barrels.

However, in the US a gun with sleeved barrels is valued at the same as the gun with original barrels. All a matter of perception or, as they say in the financial world, sentiment.

Tim

[Frank Howard]

To manufacture a DHC, Lotus simply utilized the FHC mould but they skipped laying up most of the roof and utilized a special mould for the windscreen header. It is my understanding that they also added fiberglass to the bottom of the rear window recess and all the way around to the doors in order to strengthen this area in order to accomodate the Tenex fasteners for the soft top. It was a cost benefit to Lotus so the company could bin the original moulds and make both cars utilizing one mould only.

I just think that the difference between most conversions and the FHC to DHC conversion is that the Lotus factory was actually manufacturing FHCs and converting them before they went out the door. Unlike other conversions, when one performs this conversion, he is doing essentially what Lotus did at the factory.

Does it hurt the value of the car? I hear conflicting reports as to what the markets say but as long as there are people like my friend who performed the conversion and there are people like myself who are willing to pay a premium for a converted car over an original FHC, I believe the conversion can only enhance the value. Look at it this way. If I'm trying to sell a converted car and 1,000 potential buyers think the conversion hurt the value of the car and 10 potential buyers think it enhances the value, it doesn't really matter what the first group thinks as the car will be sold to a member of the second group.

[alexblack13]

Hello guys,

Great topic this with a well 'spoken' debate.

No comments required as some of the best Lotus experts already on board..

Well done chaps. Makes greatly entertaining and informative reading!

Alex B....

[adigra]

I very much tend to agree with Mark on this. I think that Elans have traditionally been bought by the enthusiasts interested in their performance and less so in their investment value, so a converted car was just as good a proposition as the original one. But as the cars get more valuable more people start to pay more attention to the details in order to justify the expense. And in the classic car markets originality is definitely the new black. Not so long ago having a Spider chassis was a bonus, but now those cars are starting to slip besides the ones with the Lotus items.

I am not certain that the Elan will become as extreme as the following example, but all signs indicate it's heading that way:

My father-in-law is the AC Ace registrar and he deals with converted/upgraded/replicated vs. original cars all the time, and the values between two practically identical cars can differ by more than 50% because one had the top engine from the start (as indicated by a chassis number) and the other one had it upgraded at some later time. A car which was converted from a coupe (the Aceca) into the roadster (the Ace) is now virtually unsellable as most people view it as not much more than a replica. Absurd, but true.

In the past open cars have always commanded a premium, but as Mark has mentioned more people are starting to appreciate the coupes, and I've recently noticed quite a few FHCs going for prices often equal to those of the DHC, especially the S3s.

Adi