As a former – and pretty much guaranteed future – owner of a wedge Elite Lotus, I was horrified to hear the other day of what should be a small problem possibly meaning an early demise for all these cars. Yes, I am aware that some of you will scoff that that would be a good thing, but you are entitled to be horribly wrong. That is your right.
I received the SOS from Angus Marshall, linchpin on the essential forum lotusexcel.net, a diehard enthusiast and indefatigable champion of these far too often derided Lotuses.
The problem is that Elite, Eclat and Excel use a particular steel profile for their window frames – one shared with wedge TVRs, later Esprits and possibly some Reliants – which rots. Rots like a 1970s Alfa.
In this day and age, when just about everything for every classic is available, that doesn’t seem like it should be an insurmountable problem, but it is proving so.
Lotus doesn’t seem to want to reproduce them any time soon, a four-year search to find someone to make them at a viable rate has proven fruitless (£500-750 a frame from those that reckon they could even do it), the cheaper alternative of remaking them in ally is no-go because the lighter metal flexes badly at speed (hence why Esprits moved to steel frames) and cannibalising NOS later Esprit frames doesn’t really work because the curvature is wrong.
Angus, understandably rather distraught at the situation, said: “Have we finally got to a stage where some fantastic cars are going to be forced off the road because a single component can't be reproduced any more? What an irony that would be if the cars are rendered unusable due to rot of one of the few exposed metal parts on them!”
So what can be done?
