Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Below are 3 pictures of my rebuilt Elan. Doing a complete down to the last nut and bolt rebuild has been a great learning experience and I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who posts on this board. I must have used the board as a reference hundreds of times and almost always found the answer somewhere. Special thanks to Ray at RD, Susan Miller, Paul Matty, Ken at Dave Bean, Mike at Stonebridge Sports and Classics, Josh at British Wiring, Julio Grosso Restorations who did the paint job, American Dry Stripping and GMT Racing who I went to when all else failed!

Now I need to find a FHC...

David

Beautiful! What shade of red is it? Where did you get the carpet set?

Greg Z

Wow. That looks amazing!

Congratulations, your car looks superb!

Fantastic David. Very nice!

Greg,

The red is Lotus Carnival Red. The carpet set came from Sue Miller in the UK.

David

That`s an inspiration to anyone thinking of buying a project !!
Jim

Well done!

Very nice indeed must be very satisfying - can't see a front bumper strip though - is this a deliberate choice?

Apparently Paul Matty have new flexible and easier to fit ones.

David, absolutely FANTASTIC! You must feel so relieved. And it looks like a blast to drive.

I notice no side mirrors, ...............any particular reason other than it's hard and expensive to find proper originals, and they can be a bear to install, and then you still can't see very well anyway?

Greg Z is doing his car right now. He and I wen tto the body shop last night to see the progress and his body guy did a great job of installing threaded inserts into his door before paint.

Great job!

Famous Frank

Please tell us more about the Paul Matty Front Bumper Strip!

Famous Frank

Famous Frank wrote:David, absolutely FANTASTIC! You must feel so relieved. And it looks like a blast to drive.

I notice no side mirrors, ...............any particular reason other than it's hard and expensive to find proper originals, and they can be a bear to install, and then you still can't see very well anyway?

Greg Z is doing his car right now. He and I wen tto the body shop last night to see the progress and his body guy did a great job of installing threaded inserts into his door before paint.

Great job!

Famous Frank

Hi David

Nice work, real nice work and it looks fantastic. Seems the bumper trim and mirrors thing might be a New England thing. Niether are on my S2 either and if Lotus had taken the time to blend the bumper to the nose they wouldn't have had them either but it was probably less money to cover your sins than to fix them right by blending them. Why look in the mirror, just step on the throttle and leave it behind

The bumper strip was left off on purpose. The body shop managed to get a nice consistent gap along the whole length of it and I just prefer it without. I still have bad memories of trying to fit one on a cold day outside back in 1974!

I have mirrors (Talbot Berlins) to fit but I will wait until I pull the doors apart to add Alex's special window cable fasteners. The drivers window is very smooth but the passenger one is not as good as it should be which probably means the cable will unravel soon...

Reading my post again I did forget to mention a few other valuable contacts; Brian Buckland whose wonderful book is a must for any Elan restorer and who is very willing to answer e mails when the book does not cover a subject; Len Chandler who did a fantastic job restoring the steering wheel and Gary at CG Woodcraft who did the dash.

David

Spectacular job, David. It is as beautiful a job as I have seen with very useful additions to original spec such as the pusher fan. It seems that the wonderful Strombergs have morphed into some older technology that I have only seen on very early Elans such as the series 1,2 and 3.

David, Looks great on all fronts. Even the doors fit! Did these have to be cut apart and re-glassed? This is next up on my rolling restoration. Thanks, Dan