A lotus journey

[Guest]

As I am a recent GT3 owner I thought I would share my lotus journey....

Once upon a time I was much much younger and even had hair... it was so long ago it was the 80s

Early 80s

My father went to a business event and came back with a gift for me.

The coolest thing ever

A black bomber jacket. With an orange lining with gold piping and cuffs and JPS embroidered on the chest (remember I was 12 and it WAS the 80s!)..  and so began a lifelong love for the Black Esprit JPS

As years passed I started to restore older cars. A 1957 MG. A triumph herald (urghh) a triumph GT6...

Then I stopped playing with cars and got a job... and a life instead.

Then suddenly I was going to be a father and realised this is my last chance ! I rushed out and bought the best lotus I could afford... and it wasn't an esprit... they were about 3k more than I had at the time so I changed models... still had popup lights  and still met my own requirements for old school cars. .. a lotus elan +2 in tawny brown and gold roof.

Drove absolutely beautifully.  I knew that lotus was good but this was a 1973 car with all round disk brakes that was just amazing compared to anything else from the 70s or 80s... walnut dash... chrome bezeled dials... lovely

Paint was horrible so I stripped it back and resprayed it on my driveway the first summer.

I commuted in it for a couple of year's. Down the m40 all the way into Oxford Circus. Then discovered why I was getting a clunk... cracked chassis. The left side of the chassis wasn't even attached to the centre tube...

So I embarked on a full restoration. New galvanised chassis. New gel coat.  New paint... 16k later I had a perfect elan !

So I sold it for a massive loss..  idiot

But at the time I wanted a car with airbags. Maybe I had grown too old for the elan or too cautious....

Years passed and then bordem one day had me googling esprit once again... those black JPS were now way out of my price bracket... I decided on three different models of esprit for my search... an s3 turbo a GT3 with the later dash or a v8....

I started my search and nearly got suckered by a fake s3 turbo on the Internet that suddenly moved from Cornwall to Inverness when I said I could come and take a look.... so my search continued and I spotted the perfect GT3 in yellow with later dash..... then.... redundancy... lotus dreams on hold....

A few years later I was a "professional"  mechanic working in a classic ferrari workshop that also had a bit of everything... over the years I was lucky enough to play with and drive pretty much anything from lambo aventador to ferrari 250 GTO... only one car did I get out of and think...oh yes ! A 997 porsche classic

Fearing midlife crisis I looked again for a lotus.  And being a mechanic I was also broke... so all I could find was a gutted elan +2 with no drive train.  It cost the same as my tawny one !

That elan is nearing the end of a long restomod (I couldnt bear to buy a twin cam and 5spd box for the price of an entire car) and needing a classic fix in the mean time I went out and got a dirt cheap TVR 3000m... and ermmm. Then spent a lot to time and money making it less dirt cheap.

Last year I was taking my almost daily fix of lotus on the net and came across a Green GT3 on LEW... GT3/late dash... excellent, but Newt beat me to it... my search for GT3 then went dry....I happened to be on piston heads forums talking TVR and stumbled upon another GT3

So here I am. The owner of a silk red GT3. I have driven it hundreds of miles. In fact it is responsible for me being late to meetings... I just take the longest country routes possible.

Of all the cars I have been lucky enough to drive. This one is the only one that meets and exceeds my expectations.  It sounds amazing, looks amazing.  Drives perfectly, its tractable and actually.... now that I think of it there is only one car that matches it... La Ferrari...

But I can park mine at lidl and didnt need 2 million pounds....

Still isn't JPS though...

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[johnpwalsh]

Laika, welcome and a great write up. There are many on here with similar stories as in waited for years to find the right car. They get under your skin and with your experience on the tools, you should find nothing to be a problem. keep cracking on the miles.

[ChrisJ]

Welcome Laika. Glad to see you are enjoying your GT3, however, we do need pictures

Chris

 

[Guest]

Yep. My pictures came out with that weird link at the bottom of my first post

[Guest]

[Jacques]

Great looking Esprit!

Jacques.