Restoration Completed-(Almost)

[nico506]

Hi all,
I thought I would post these photos to share the completion of my Elan after 7 years of putting it together since the body was restored and completed by option 1 in 2005.
I am in the procss of 'fettling' all bits and bobs and getting the engine to run smoothly - which is almost there.

If anyone has any questions or queries - feel free to ask and looking forward to getting it out this summer as it seems too good to sit in the garage hoping for the elusiv drive

Hope this gives inspiration to those plugging away at their 'restos', and as I purchased this car as a stripped pile of bits -no chassis- it has been a fun and worthwhile cause- in terms of acheiving this end result- very satisfying.

btw there does not seem to b many BRG elans out there - any reason?????? as i think the colour suits the car well.

Cheers

Nico
S3 Elan SE 1968

[alaric]

Nico you've done yourself proud - a beautifull looking car that must have taken many hours and a lot of patience to put together.

Hope to see it in the flesh some time soon.

Sean.

[nico506]

Hi All
I thought I would post another updated photos showing the car completed with the hood up , and the doors finally adjusted and fettled. I was the one that asked for help on fitting the Mohair Hood and as a result it was really easy to fit, and looks really good- even thought not an original fitment.

Now getting an MOT and hopefully making use of whats left of the summer, and for me it is also a result after being laid up by the 1st owner in 1974 in bits!

Thanks for looking and if any one wants to ask a question on the resto - feel free to send pm or post a query.

Regards
Nico
Lotus Elan S3 1968

[Spyder fan]

Nico,

Nice photo's of a car you can be proud of. As for the colour BRG, you are right it suits the Elan, for some reason the majority of Elan's are painted Yellow, Red, or Blue with the Sprint colours also pretty much the same Yellow/white, Red/white, Blue/white. My theory on this is that the advertising material of the time mostly had these colours in the photo's and the motor show cars were always the bright colours. So those of us who weren't lucky enough to own these cars when they were new have remembered them as the lighter colours and that's what we want.

I am also painting my S4 Elan in Green........ although it's going to be 20 shades lighter than yours in Pistachio over White. At Malvern this year there was a really nice looking Sprint on Gordon Lunds stand in these colours and my Wife said that's what we are having..... I didn't get a choice

[Steve G]

That's interesting, Pistachio was my absolute favourite colour for the Elan, John Simister's one (That I very nearly bought but was a few grand short at the time!) was absolutely stunning. I plan to one day restore my car to original, non-Sprint, livery and wanted to go for the pistachio but my wife didn't like it. Not that it is up to her but she really hated it. So it's (probably) going back to it's original Lotus Yellow. BRG is also a fantastic colour on the Elan, especially on the 26R with red interior and yellow bumper.