New Plus 2 body shell

[ClashofLotus]

Hey guys,

My 1968 Lotus Elan Plus 2 has pretty much sat unrestored and stripped down to nuts and bolts for the last 10+ years... I had been meaning to get to it but a new family and life seem to get in the way! I'm sure many of you can sympathise with me!

Anyway, my uncle has kindly offered to help restore the body as he is very proficient with fibreglass having build his own cars from the stuff (for anyone interested http://www.devauxcars.com) and after the paint has been removed it is very obvious that this car has been in an accident of some sort and a new nose has been previously grafted on as some point... badly I might add and starting to de-laminate. In addition there are hundreds or more cracks and such through the remainder of the body that have been repaired over its life time.

My uncles professional opinion that for the time (and money) it was going to take him to repair it money would be better spent on finding a reproduction body shell.

So I am wondering if anyone here knows of where I can get a reproduction shell for an early '68 Plus 2? I found a guy on eBay that has the moulds for a 'bonded front screen shell' but that is a much later body from my research (Plus 2 130S?).

To add to the problem I am in Australia but understand that the UK will likely be my only option so have factored in shipping etc. into my budget! It does make looking at second-hand bodies hard...

Thanks for anyone that can help me out.

Cheers,

Adam

[rgh0]

If I remember right from a few years ago there was a guy in Adelaide who had a Plus 2 Body left over from a parts car he bought for a restoration. The body condition was supposed to be OK. I cant remember who it was but some one in the SA Lotus club may know.

cheers
Rohan

[ClashofLotus]

If I remember right from a few years ago there was a guy in Adelaide who had a Plus 2 Body left over from a parts car he bought for a restoration. The body condition was supposed to be OK. I cant remember who it was but some one in the SA Lotus club may know.

cheers
Rohan

Thanks Rohan - I might try and see if I can contact someone in the SA Lotus club! An OK body locally would be much better than what I have!

[RichC]

Hi Adam,
having just been through this for the reshelling of my early 68 +2 I'm confident it'll be easier to use your own shell or a donor shell from the same era. There are quite a few differences between the early and late shells ..Brand new shells aren't available for the old shell & anyhow they are much thinner, full of imperfections, require an awful lot of drilling of holes etc.. it's not really a timesaver ( if that's what your uncle is thinking )
RichC

[ClashofLotus]

Hi Adam,
having just been through this for the reshelling of my early 68 +2 I'm confident it'll be easier to use your own shell or a donor shell from the same era. There are quite a few differences between the early and late shells ..Brand new shells aren't available for the old shell & anyhow they are much thinner, full of imperfections, require an awful lot of drilling of holes etc.. it's not really a timesaver ( if that's what your uncle is thinking )
RichC

Hi RichC,

I wish you were right, but this thing is not salvageable for me... I have an estimate of about 5000 pounds just to repair it and talk about thin... my body is perhaps 2-3mm in places...

Hopefully I find a donor shell locally like Rohan pointed out, otherwise I might have to make the newer reproduction shell work for me...

I did read your post on your body and you found a great donor body that's for sure, I hope I have the same luck!!

Cheers,

Adam

[rgh0]

Adam

90% of fibreglass repair is easy to do it yourself, it is just the surface finishing of the upper outer body that needs some skill to get right.

If you do the easy 90% yourself then the final finishing and repainting of the shell / doors/ bonnet / boot should be around A$10k and most of that is the painting. The cost to do final prep on a new shell and paint it will be much the same.

cheers
Rohan

[Orsom Weels]

I would tend to agree with RichC. Unless you can find a GOOD shell of the correct type, it will be easier to repair your old shell. If your uncle builds his own cars from GRP, he should have no difficulty in repairing what you have, & you'll spend a lot more than ?5k buying, modifying & sorting all the issues on a new later type shell.
My friends series 3 shell was horrendous when we started that, it had had a new nose section very badly bonded on, about 3/4 inch over to one side, which had subsequently been damaged from a front end impact, all 4 arches were non existent or too far gone to repair, the screen frame was broken & at the wrong angle, plus there were numerous other areas of severe damage & de-lamination all over.
We looked at a new shell, but they really do require a huge amount of remedial work so decided the money would be better spent repairing the original. It took a fair amount of time, but with wheel arch repair sections & plenty of mat & resin, it now looks great. We added layers of mat where we thought it a bit thin, like under wheel arches & the nose etc & where there is a lot of stress, like door handles, hinge & wiper wheel box mounting points etc, all of which would have had to be done to a replacement, so the amount of work probably wasn't that much more in reality. Just treat it as a series of individual repairs.

Regards, Tim

[ClashofLotus]

Hey guys!

Thanks for your support - its a shame that people don't seem to re-make the earlier bodies, while I love everyone's enthusiasm for repairing my existing body I seem to be getting conflicting viewpoints from you guys and my uncle. I will have to put up some pictures of the body and perhaps you guys might change your minds but reading Tims story makes me think I can repair anything!!

Just out of curiosity are there lots of differences between the early and late bodies? Are they mostly cosmetic or will a lot of parts not fit (obviously the windscreens are different).

Thanks again for everyone's help and I will continue to look for a good donor body and then perhaps look at what it will take to repair my own.

If anyone knows of the guy in the South Australia Lotus club with a spare shell please let me know.

Thanks again for all of your help.

Regards,

Adam

[Sea Ranch]

Adam, aside from the obvious front end difference - the molded in driving lamp pockets - the newer body also has a different boot floor mold. The original car had a transverse silencer while the later car had a longitudinal silencer. The boot floor was molded to suit these.

Also, the early car had an external boot lid lock/handle on the rear panel below the boot lid, while the later car had hemispherical pockets in the rear of both left and right door jams, to accommodate a "remote" boot lid release handle (on driver's side, thus the pocket on both sides of the car for LHD and RHD models).

Those are just the changes that come to mind. I have a later car shell (Feb 1970) so am not so familiar with the early car shell details.

FWIW, my shell was in decent shape, but had a rather rough front right corner replacement many years previous. Not super accurate. I removed dozens of rivets and lots of poorly laid fiberglass and fixed things up. Did piles of structural repairs and strengthening as well, along with tons of gel coat repairs. Lots of work. But definitely worth it, to me. Paint's on now and I'm very happy with it.

Regards,

Randy

[elanman999]

Adam,
Who says the wind screens are different? The A pillars and roof section (where the screen fits) are the same for sure as I have a bonded screen roof fitted to my non-bonded screen car. Some do say the body along where the bottom of the screen fits is different on the later cars. But the car I got the roof off was the same, it was an early +2S.
Cheers
John

[theelanman]

I thought there were 3 types of windscreen.......
and they were from different cars.......

the first was a double curvature screen for the early models......Ron Hickman spent year looking for one and had many a conversation about it with myself and others.....from a consul capri

then there was the standard screen......not sure what from

then the sundym screens......and again not sure what from

[theelanman]

in addition.....IIRC
the original screen was a std rubber surround
the later std screen came with rubber and also bonded
the sundym was just bonded........

I seem to remember someone tried fitting a std screen in a later car only to find it didn't fit........
whether any previous fettling by the DPO had taken place I don't know.......

[RichC]

Early 2S is not early enough!
If you go back to first 800 or so plus 2 shells thats where there are differences discussed below, also including completely different (and more substantial) door catches which were off Hillman imp

[wotsisname]

In addition to the above....
Do some of the "S" cars have inset badges toward the rear? The early +2 doesn't.
I think my dash mounting bobbins are a smaller thread than later cars (possibly one of those - fit what we have in stock, Lotus moments ?)
I also have two non-matching (different lengths) metal gutters for the roof (not off the car originally), the parts manual lists two part no.'s , I don't know if this is just a change to the fitted part or some aspect of the roof changed.

Not agreeing or disagreeing with the body change..

[theelanman]

there are no 'inset' badges to the rear.....
there were additional badges which were fixed with a couple of hole.....but not inset as such
early cars had the Lotus letters on the boot/trunk
then later were 's' badges and 130/s badges.........etc on the rear winds/fenders