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I'm actually pretty far into this project already, I wouldn't say near the end because there never really is an end with project cars 😂 I wanted to share the build from the start on the forums though as it seems so much of this stuff just gets lost on social media. I want to ensure that whoever ends up with this car next has something to refence and maybe have an opportunity to answer those "WTF was he thinking when he did this?" questions. So I'll start from the begging and update this often. I haven't actually cranked the engine over at this point build but hopefully will be doing that mid Oct. This rebuild isn't for the purists and I assure you things might get weird b…

Last night I had a call from a guy after some Lotus parts for his S2 Esprit, we had a chat and it turns out he is in Plymouth and had his car for over 16 years and covered only a few thousand miles. I agreed on his parts and thought that was that when the phone rang again and he asked my full name, then said I was the previous owner of the car, He gave me the registration and colour which mean't nothing as the car was yellow and had an Irish plate fitted, after a little digging I asked what colour the clocks were and they were green, I clicked right away and asked if it was white before and yes. To cut a long story short I bought this car towards the end of my …

A few years ago a young frizzy haired chap called @Barrykearley asked on here where he might find a set of carpets for his S3. Being a domestic carpet supplier/fitter with a wife who's a wizard with leather, I thought, we can do that, offered my help, and armed with a roll of paper and some carpet samples headed off to Worcestershire. The rest is history. Things have come a long way...Barry no longer has his S3, or any hair, and tomorrow morning our 50th set of carpets will be shipped off to the USA. So a huge thanks to all those people who have recommended, supported, and helped us get our little cottage industry off the ground.

Hello fellow hooners, Its been 20 years since I decided to renovate and personalise my Esprit. After some period away expanding the family Loti is getting some attention again. She had been laid up and outside since Covid, Body and interior has suffered a little. Cracks and delamination of lacquer on the side facing the sun. Standing also caused the Carbs to varnish up etc however they have been addressed on the whole and it now running with MOT and road worthy. For those that have been in the scene since the Yahoo days or partook in some of the LEW and Unity events of the past may remember I polled out to the group and then eventually settled on a Mercedes deep meta…

After an absence of approx. 10 years, V8 Project GT1 is back ! There are more options available now to extend the performance of the project, so the general plan is to loose more weight, completely exchange the transmission and upgrade the engine to provide power in excess of 550bhp. Externally the car is going to have the genuine GT1 replica treatment in the form of the #22 Jan Lammers/Perry McCarthy car. As the car has spent very little time running over the last 10 years, so it's going to be a case of get the engine/gearbox out and inspect everything. Looking forward to sharing progress over the next months. Here she is on the trip yesterday. It w…

Well, its been a long wait since I sold my S2 to fund the purchase, (Feb/March) but my S1has finally arrived from the States. A bit rough looking paint wise and although a lot has been spent on it by previous owners (by the pile of invoices included in the sale) there are quite a few things to do (it is a Lotus after all!!) to get it on the road. Arrived absolutely filthy with some damage underneath, cracked rear bumper and a light lens broken which wasn't in the photos before it set off from the States. The guy that transported it up to Lancashire took some photos of the damage before he loaded it onto his transporter to aid in my claim. Im going to put a claim in to the…

So a friend of mine popped round this morning to look at my new toy. He's a mechanic and part time British Super Bike pit technician. After a good peruse he raised one eyebrow and with a chuckle said "You should have bought the Astramax van!" In fairness I was part way through ripping out the degraded fuel breather hoses so she did look a bit worse for ware but he knew better. If anyone was wondering, I just bought the 93 press car which was used for several magazines and the infamous Clarkson V plumber episode of Top Gear where he coined the phrase Lots Of Trouble Usually Serious... what could possibly go wrong? erm...many things. She's a …

Those of a nervous disposition may want to look away now. I have several jobs to do, clutch, fuel tanks, and exhaust manifold, so decided it was time to bite the bullet.

Well...move over Barry, it's my turn for skinned knuckles, heartache, nightmares and bankruptcy. I was under no illusion when I bought a V8 Esprit, that it would take some looking after, but I wasn't prepared for how much and how soon. The first thing was to get her checked over by a specialist, new belts, tyres, oil and filter and MOT, I was told she was a good car BUT....... A little too much play in the intermediate shaft bearings, (we shall find out soon) a dodgy air con rad, the plates between the turbo compressor and turbine were corroded to the point of disintegration, and a leak from the driveshaft seals. I've built a garage on the side of my …

Every project needs a good name! As a Project Manager I know how essential a good name is for a project to be successful. I've seen hundreds of projects and am convinced a good project name is essential for project success. Some project names are more creative like "All-IP", some predictive, like "Technology Refresh" or "DCC - Data Centre Consolidation" and some abstract like "NewCo". I've been amused to see several projects named "Phoenix" that have generally been set up after their predecessor project failed. Their successors were named Phoenix II more than once. So, without further ado let me introduce you to "BASIC INSTINCT, the Lotus Esprit V8 project…

Having cleared up the latest home reno program successfully by late May I have since put my head down and given great effort at moving forward the restoration of my S2. I feel it will be helpful to present here what evidence of the work I have, not only in the spirit of community but also to help me gauge the rate of progress. I can say this campaign demands rather more than most would anticipate as, though Lotus designed a truly lovely car in the Esprit, they could not have built it to endure such neglect as mine has seen without consequences. As I may have noted earlier the previous owner lived the life of Riley, freely trundling back and forth through the salted slush …

So I'm not very religious - but today I feel I need to visit a confessional box. I've been bad - I have crumbled to my filthy and dirty desires. My dirty thoughts have overtaken the clean ones and for this I need forgiveness........

Hello again, I’m a former owner of an SE and an S2 and have posted a few times before on various topics. A little bit of background..... I eventually sold the S2 in 2013 (the SE had been gone a while at this stage). I was fortunate to own them both for a long period (about 5 years of overlap from memory) and had some great times with both cars. With a family on the way, I pre-emptively moved across to another type of car, but deep down missed the S2. The SE was great to own, but the S2 was really the one I hankered after. Another reason I sold up was that the S2 had reached the tipping point of really needing a body lift and paint work that at the time…

Picture probably says most of it... Tomorrow is the day

I've been wanting to try and retrofit central locking to my Esprit for a while, but rather than using an aftermarket alarm I wanted to do it in an OE manner with Vauxhall sourced parts since that is what the current alarm is based on; specifially the mk2 Cavalier, or Vectra A to those on the continent. Over the past few months in my spare time I've been researching the period Vauxhall forums and consulting various wiring diagrams to work out what would be required to make this work. Breaking it down to its simplest it seems that remote CDL is plug and play, you should be able to just replace the CDL module in the passenger footwell with the right one from a Vectra B …

I recently purchased JPS no. 44 .The car has been off the road since 1993 . I managed to trace quite a bit of history from the posts on here - at one point it was owned by Graham Cappell ( he bought it via ebay in 2006 for £1385) , SJ Sports cars , Tocus and then sold to Malta - I purchased it without viewing from Malta last month and it arrived on Wednesday. The chassis has apparently been fully restored and then the body refitted. I don't know who did the chassis - when Tocus bought it it had already been done. I will have to split the body off the car as I've noticed the lower wishbones are rusty and I need to extract the engine and get it rebuilt. Th…

As we are all well aware the costs of things have been rising pointedly lately. Recently on a tour through a prominent local restoration/fabricator concern I took the opportunity to ask of the cost to paint an Esprit, already stripped and in pieces with GRP in generally good condition. Must say it was a bit of a shock when told ballpark 15 - 20K, sight unseen. Oh, how things have changed from the mid- '80's when I hired a chap to complete finishing and paint my '64 Elan at $1600, all in.

I wasn't going to post this one as I had hoped it'd be a fairly simple resurrection. You'd think I'd have learnt by now. So, it's becoming a bit of a project, recorded here for the delight and delectation of @shaf007. When I bought this car in 2007 it was a mess. Over the following 3 years I put a lot of work into it and reluctantly sold it, gleaming, to Shaf around 12 years ago to move to a GT3. Unfortunately the car has spent the last 8 years outside and hardly moving at all, especially in the last 3 or 4 years. This has taken a huge toll, mechanically and cosmetically. Day 1 was simply inspection and snagging. I now have writer's cramp. H…

Just got round to ignition barrel problem. The end of the barrel is missing, does anyone know the cross part reference? Was it used on the Triumph?Also,considering replacing bearings inside column has anyone done this yet? Have bought Talbot Simca dash from ebay, when it arrives will post whether it can be used for spares for the Veglia display.

Hi everyone, You may be familiar with my other page named restoration of 837G . Good news I got the newly rebuilt engine back today ( new liners and everything......) . However on a separate note I am struggling to source a couple of parts 1) The 'inner' moulding for the passenger side ( left) rear light on my car is missing . I have attached a photo of the right hand side and wondered if anyone knew where I can source this (old or new ) ?? Any help greatly appreciated 2) Aircon - compressor bracket . My car is a rare factory aircon model, but the compressor bracket is missing. I have a new compressor but no way to fix it. I can have…

There must be something about me that attracts abandoned cars or maybe I'm just a sucker for an unloved project? Either way I recently bought this 1976 orange/tartan S1 which had been in a barn for 20 years without seeing the light of day. My wife says it's the evil ginger twin of my white car...

As a few of you may know I recently bought a restoration project. I was looking for a project and as a kid I thought the Eclat was cool so I revisited those and couldn't decide whether I liked them or hated them. In the end I decided to give it a miss but the Excel and Elite didn't blow my skirt up and although I like the Elise and 60s Elans I have missed the boat price-wise with those. So that really only left the Esprit and then this Turbo came up which was within my very small budget. It had been sat in a barn for years and needs a total restoration. As you can see it looks very rough but that's because it is very rough and has had a million owners... The ot…

Well thanks to Arek, at ARCCARTRANSPORT ,07584439539 I got a new project!He did a superb job at a very reasonable price and is familiar with the Lotus range.

Finally decided to dedicate a thread to the rebuild of my s2. As most of you know I bought the car about 5 years ago from the UK, took the whole thing apart for a full 'body off' restoration and now it seems I am about to turn the corner and start putting things back on the car! I am a complete novice at this and funnily enough the esprit was the first car I have ever bought (some might same i'm ambitious but most think i'm stupid haha). The car was originally painted 'lemon yellow' (L31), however in its past it had been sprayed (very badly) in black. It was a nightmare putting thing back to original state as even the bumpers had 3 times the mounting …

Back in March 2018 I took what I hope won't prove to be a miguided chance and bought a running S4s in need of tidying up. As one of my good friends aptly described it, the car has been "thrown back together" so while everything is largely there and working a lot of it hasn't been put back together with a great deal of care, so lots of things aren't fixed in where they are supposed to be. Seems this car was a topic of debate on here when it went up for sale last year, so I thought I would start a thread on the work I have and will be doing on it as time allows. Here it is all tucked up in my new garage patiently waiting for me to start work on it once the main c…