Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

We are about to move house (probably my last house) and it is time for my Elan to go to a new owner.
I have owned it for 17 years and it has had a complete rebuild (mostly 2005 to 2008) and is in nice shape and runs well.

It is an S4 DHC originally supplied by Lotus as a kit in 1968 and registered 1st Jan 1969.
It has matching numbers, good paint (no microblisters) in "Gold Leaf" colours with a plain gold stripe. Lots of parts have been replaced over the years - dash, seat covers, carpets, hood, electric fuel pump, uprated S3 style radiator. Runs Webers, but has the bonnet with the "blister" that was meant for the Stronmbergs. Engine work was done by QED, gearbox rebuilt.
Several folders of receipts and history .......

So the question is, how do I decide on a price to ask and where is the best place to sell it?

I have looked in the back of the various classic car magazines.....
I see cars for sale in all the usual dealers, but I think I will sell it privately, maybe on here? On Pistonheads? Ebay (surely not!).

Any constructive ideas gratefully received.
Thanks and regards
Bruce

Bruce, you can probably start off with Hagerty price guide, which looks pretty fair to me on most of the cars I know....

https://www.hagerty.co.uk/valuation/too ... m=S4&b=DHC

It seems to me that any DHC S4 over 30k has to be absolutely perfect, fresh out of a full, professional standard restoration and with full provenance.

A well sorted driver quality car looks to be around £25k. It sounds like your car could be in-between those prices.

Paul Matty sales site used to be a great barometer for sales prices, although folks would forget that his prices included a retail mark-up and of course a warrantee. You could generally take 15% or more off his prices for a realistic private sale.

I would advertise first on Car and Classic and ebay. But only put it on ebay as a classified advert rather than an auction.

If you get in a hurry to sell, then there are many auction sites now that will get it sold for you, but remember that they charge both seller and buyer, so you may end up 15% or 20% worse off than if you sold it yourself, but you don't have the issue of the tyre kickers coming around!

Good luck with the sale

Mark

Hi Bruce,
Try this, check prices of all DHC Elans that you can find. Look at ebay, pistonheads, classiccarsforsale, Club lotus magazine, Paul Matty, UK sports cars.
Some of these cars will be listed on several sites. You may find say nine cars for sale.
Then discard the silly highest priced one and the lowest priced, and any which are heavily modified or projects.
Average the remaining cars. These will mainly be dealers.
Next, deduct the discount that the dealer may offer a buyer and then his mark up which may be 15 to 20 %
You now have a suggestion of what you could expect to sell yours for.
At least it is a reasoned start figure.
I do this from time to time to review my insurance and nominal value.
Best of luck
Eric in Burnley
1967 S3SE DHC

Check out the Elans sold and, right now, one being sold on Bring a Trailer. Comments there are most interesting and helpful.

Elanintheforest wrote:Bruce, you can probably start off with Hagerty price guide, which looks pretty fair to me on most of the cars I know....

https://www.hagerty.co.uk/valuation/too ... m=S4&b=DHC

It seems to me that any DHC S4 over 30k has to be absolutely perfect, fresh out of a full, professional standard restoration and with full provenance.

A well sorted driver quality car looks to be around £25k. It sounds like your car could be in-between those prices.

Paul Matty sales site used to be a great barometer for sales prices, although folks would forget that his prices included a retail mark-up and of course a warrantee. You could generally take 15% or more off his prices for a realistic private sale.

I would advertise first on Car and Classic and ebay. But only put it on ebay as a classified advert rather than an auction.

If you get in a hurry to sell, then there are many auction sites now that will get it sold for you, but remember that they charge both seller and buyer, so you may end up 15% or 20% worse off than if you sold it yourself, but you don't have the issue of the tyre kickers coming around!

Good luck with the sale

Mark

With the utmost respect, that’s probably far to cheap, as you only have to see what burnt out elans sell for. How much was the one at Matthews and there are others.
Just my 2p and I guess it’s what the owner needs or doesn’t need that ultimately determines the price.

Cheers

There is one on BAT right now, so a good one to compare yours to and to see how that market value it.

Prices of Elan's in the USA seem to be rather less than they are in the UK.

You need to take that into account too.

Thanks for all your help on this.
I have posted it on here - have a look at the "For Sale" section.
On the price, there aren't many around and most seem to be with dealers and be £30k plus! So I thought I will ask for £26k as it is a private sale.

Other thing I have tried is that rather than try and put all the details in the advert I have created a one page web site and put more of the details in there. Have a look and let me what you think...... https://elan842276593.wordpress.com/

In due course, I will add it to the Seloc site (I have been on there for years) and probably on Pistonheads. Not sure where else, but many of the cars seem to be advertised on several sites.

Any feedback will be apprciated
Thanks and regards
Bruce

Looking at your description I think that you are under selling it. It looks superb - 30plus k in my book. Good luck, D

PS - you could clean up the cam cover!!

Love the webpage, great looking Elan. Shouldn't last long!

Maybe Collecting Cars, seems to have a pretty good audience and of course the traditional auction houses have been getting strong results as well.

I'd NOT suggest BaT for listing for a UK car, really only drives strong prices in the US (even Canadian cars can see weaker results).

Good luck!

TBG wrote:Looking at your description I think that you are under selling it. It looks superb - 30plus k in my book. Good luck, D

PS - you could clean up the cam cover!!

At last we agree

Seems a lovely car.... you cant do a proper restoration for that price.

cheers

Thanks for the feedback.
TBG - the engine photo is old, the cam cover is probably clean-ish ......
SENC - thanks for the comment on the web page, I did a freeby on Wordpress. I used to maintain a web site for a charity and learned to use their service then.
Mark - I agree that you couldn't do such a restoration as a business. It is only practical if it is a hobby and we get our fun from restoring such a nice wee car!
The restoration was a great project and of course the car will never be "finished", there are always little bits that need improving. One of my recent ones was changing to an electric fuel pump - totally changed starting the car when it had been sitting for a few weeks.

I'll update you if and when anything happens.
Regards
Bruce

Nice website. Can you make the pictures larger, or 'clickable' for expansion?

As an owner of a S4 SE in Gold Leaf colours , I would have said over £30k.
I hope you will ,therefore, enjoy a quick and trouble-free sale.