Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

It is time to sell my Elan +2, after many years developing it into a very relable Lotus chassised, Zetec powered car which has been built with fast road/classic track day action in mind. I want to go and do alot of track days with my son and the Elan is much too nice to use and risk damaging it. Please let me know where you feel the best place is to advertise it and if there is any comments on value it will be very helpful

Thanks

Rich

Hi Rich,

this place is a fair start but "Pistonheads" seems to be the place to go, having a wider Audience.
The Lotus Club(s) Magazines only appear quarterly so a bit slow.
Sorry to hear you will be losing your +2; what will be replacing it?
By the way it looks nice & low

Cheers
John

Hi John,

Thank you for your feed back, regarding the car we are looking at is the Caterham. The ride is lower than normal but with fully adjustable suspension we have found this height to work well, it does not have problems with speed bumps and gives a good secure feel on the road with little body role.

Thanks again.

Rich

Hi Rich,

You not only need the best place to advertise but the best time to advertise. I would say wait until April and start the sales campaign at the Club Lotus show, this costs ?25 to put your car in a dedicated for sale area at the show and includes one free entry ticket for both days and they cost ?9 each on the door so you are getting a great deal. Prior to the show put a really detailed 10 day auction on Ebay with a "Buy It Now" price above what you hope to get for the car, a start price of ?1000 and a reserve just below the buy it now price (eg Buy it now = ?20,000--- reserve = ?19,900), that way unless someone actually clicks on buy it now (In which case you have a result!) you won't have to pay any Ebay fees other than the insertion fee and you will have a really good nationwide or even worldwide exposure for your car which is advertised elsewhere on Pistonheads for example. The "Buy It Now" option will remain on an Ebay auction until the reserve price is reached, which is why you set the reserve just below this otherwise you will sell the car within Ebay and have to pay the sellers fee which can be quite high.

Make sure you plaster all over the Ebay auction that the car can be viewed all weekend at the Lotus show, ask people to email you for your contact details, then point them to the Pistonheads advert which is where you have fixed the real asking price. Be prepared to put up with a load of dreamers, timewasters and test pilots and politely refuse any stupid part exchanges or swaps, but please try and refrain from putting things like NO DREAMERS, TEST PILOTS OR TIMEWASTERS on your advert, it peeves the hell out of me and I'm sure it does other genuine people as well, when I look at a car I don't want to be bullied by the type of person who would put that kind of proviso in an advert, if I like a car I generally do a deal and buy it on the spot, most adverts contain incorrect information and one persons idea of A1 condition equals grade B to others (sorry that's turned into a blog!).

What are the good points about your car? It's not original, so who are your target customers going to be? I think your car is Zetec engined but retains most of the original Lotus running gear, therefore try and aim the description towards this is a real classic that goes like a modern.

Good luck!

Now that was a good read Alan.
A master Class in Ebay usage, I've learned a lot from that, thanks.

Did you serve an Apprenticeship under Chapman

John

John,
That Chapman fellow was a total guru in salesmanship, it would be nice to be compared albeit in only a slight way, I bet if I had ever worked for the guy I would have had to have paid for the privelege and he would have convinced me I was getting a good deal! I sell Hinges, door closers, locks and handles for a living, that's pretty boring to most people even those who need to buy the items, so salesmanship, talking up and just plain barefaced cheek is needed to be successful.

Apart from my Ebay selling abilities I can also buy off Ebay auctions at a lower cost than most people can achieve. PM me and I will give you the details on how to do that.

Regards and apologies to Rich for cluttering his thread up with chit chat!

Hi Alan,

Thank you for your feed back, from it I think that I have a plan, Ebay + Piston Heads is the way to go, your input to kicking off this next project of is key.

Regarding a realistic sales price to make sure that it sells, any ideas where I should pitch it ?

Thanks again for you input.

Best Regards

Rich

Rich,

A really nice Factory built Spyder conversion or competent home build to factory spec will sell for ?20k so long as it's within 2 years of the build, Matty's struggled to get ?15k for the one they had late last year, but this was definitely not a Spyder factory build and it showed up dodgy paint, dodgy electrics (they used the old loom) poorly fitted body shell and below par leather interior, Spyders estimate to correct the problems was ?7500, the classics monthly +2 zetec went for about ?17k, the new owner is a member of this group, that car also had issues and was not perfect, but 17k was really cheap and a couple of grand would have made it perfect and I think the new owner is really pleased with it. I mention these cars because you might be fooled into thinking that a zetec car is worth less or no more than a similar condition original spec car if you go by these sales figures.

Non Spyder zetec conversions go for about ?14k if they are top cars and developed correctly, this is about the same kind of money that you could get for an original car that has been correctly restored by somebody competent, I have seen some real bodge jobs that frankly are dangerous and these cars sell for well under 10k unless you find a mug with loads of money and can sleep at night.

I assume that your car has really good paintwork and an excellent interior, if so you are going to sell easily if you pitch the price right. We all love to know that our cars can be quick and handle like a dream, but below par appearance will spoil the whole experience and vastly reduce any expected selling price.

If your car is A1 condition and properly developed which you say it is, I would pitch it at ?14,750 and go no lower than ?13,000 on offers although you should aim for ?13750 - ?14000. It may help selling if you give some sort of personal guarantee that you will sort any problems within 30 days of sale at this price level, thats what the dealers have to do (this is within reason of course). I would advise not putting that in writing though, but if you are confident of the car and you are selling to an enthusiast you shouldn't have any problems.

If your paint is getting tired and some areas need work, you will need to revise the above prices downwards towards 10K

I hope this is in somewhere in the region of what you are expecting? It's my own personal feel for the market at the moment, I'm good but no expert and I haven't seen your car in the flesh.

Spyder fan wrote:John,
That Chapman fellow was a total guru in salesmanship, it would be nice to be compared albeit in only a slight way, I bet if I had ever worked for the guy I would have had to have paid for the privelege and he would have convinced me I was getting a good deal! I sell Hinges, door closers, locks and handles for a living, that's pretty boring to most people even those who need to buy the items, so salesmanship, talking up and just plain barefaced cheek is needed to be successful.

Apart from my Ebay selling abilities I can also buy off Ebay auctions at a lower cost than most people can achieve. PM me and I will give you the details on how to do that.

Regards and apologies to Rich for cluttering his thread up with chit chat!

Couldn't agree more; have often wondered how many "Lotus" Fridges the Eskimo's bought from him

I'm sure Rich will not be perturbed by the minor Hijack
John

Rich another good free advert is www.carandclassic.co.uk as well as pistonheads of course good luck with the sale
Ian

I've got a factory built Zetec from 2004 but the paint was done in 2009 (back to gelcoat) and interior 4 weeks ago. For mine, I would be thinking of going for a ?20k asking price as opposed to 16ish (which is what I sometimes see) because Spyder built it. I remember thinking I would not touch a DIY one when I was looking for one. Sorry to offend the DIY people - I know that you may have done a good job but how can a new-to-Lotus potential owner guage that?

I asked Spyder what they reckon they could get for mine and they said that because the paint was pretty good they should be able to get 24k for it if they had it for long enough. Anyway, they are not really that interested in selling it. Obviously!

richgilb wrote: The renovation is over...now what?

Rich,
Build another one! Copy me, I don't care.... elan-photos-f18/fhc-soon-dhc-t19981.html

Not sure if Rich will still be around but perhaps someone else can help?

I really like the look of the wheels on Rich's Red Elan +2 in the first post.

The look like a minilite style but I was wondering if anyone recognises them and has any better info.

Do you think they are actually knock-on wheels or maybe the knock ons are fakes?

Any idea what size they might be?

Thanks,

Gavin

More info and pictures in another of Rich's posts here

lotus-chassis-f36/elan-non-spyder-zetec-conversion-new-photo-added-t19513.html

He refers to the wheels being "new Minilite black and machined aluminum wheels" however I understand that Minilite is often used to describe the style of wheel and not always referring to the minilite brand.

He also says the suspension has been modified so wasn't sure if knock ons might've been replaced for bolt ons.

Any ideas appreciated,

Thanks

Gav

I have Minilites on mine - 14 inch x 5.5.

They are by Minilite and were made to order. They use the standard knock on hub and peg drive arrangement.

I specced black with diamond cut rim highlight as a nod to the original +2S steel wheels which were black centres with chromed rim.

I am very happy with them.

Jon