New member from Germany

[LotusEuropa]

Hi everyone

My name is Raphael and I am a Lotus enthusiast and new member in this community. I am a 28 year old industrial engineer and live in Essen, Germany.

Perspectively, I would love to own an Europa S1 as it was one of the cars from Lotus that I fell in love with as a child.

I already own a '97 Elise S1 (similar to gpennino from Uruguay who joined a few weeks ago), and I think the Europa would be a great addition to it.
Additionally I am member of the Historic Lotus Register which takes care of the earliest Lotus cars (Mk VI, Seven, Eleven, Elite etc.)

Regards,
Raphael

[lotusfanatic]

 Hello Raphael,



Mark

[TurboFource]

 
Good luck on your search!

[LotusEuropa]

Thank you very much.

As the S1 is quite rare, I already believe it will take a while to get a suitable one. I believe each year there are just a few for sale and therefore this community seems to be ab great source for information.
I have no hurry fortunately, but I will be ready if one comes up.

BTW, there is one in France up for sale right now, even though it seems to be not inexpensive.
https://suchen.mobile.de/fahrzeuge/details.html?id=335956257&

What do you think about this one?

Regards,
Raphael

P.S. I will also post it to the "Classifieds Forums"-area

[jbcollier]

Depends on what you want.  If you collect the cars and have little interest in the restoration, this may be a good example.

Some concerns:

- condition of the chassis.  Unless it came from California, and it was mostly parked there, the chassis rusts away due to trapped moisture.  You would want to check it out very carefully as it is a huge job to change.

- interior carpeting. The interior should be largely bare fibreglass painted black.  The carpeting could be covering the mess made when replacing the chassis.  Again, warrants careful inspection.

- no seat belts (expensive and hard to find)

- something weird with the front radiator hoses.  maybe a hack replacement of the metal coolant tubes (?)

- door window should be chrome trimmed (original one piece window trim is pure unobtainium)

Minor quibbles:
- wrong dash screws
- valve cover should be black (I think)
- missing wheel trims
- inside of door should be black
- missing chrome trim around interior door apertures
- zip tie on ignition wires
- loose screw on steering
- some of the interior looks rough (around dash and door interiors)
- wooden dash finish cracked
- may be missing door button latch trims
- ugly locking gas cap
- trans axle is not leaking oil, probably dry (seriously, check the level first thing)
- looks to be missing horn button insert
- brake pedal rubber worn and showing rust underneath (weird given the price and how easily this could be fixed)
- wrong gear knob ( I think it should be a wood one with the a gear pattern insert)

I'm being very hard on the car but they are asking almost 50K!

[BDA]

  R5_LotusEuropa!!

That S1 looks like a beauty! Take JB’s comments very seriously. You don’t want to spend $50,000 on a beautiful car that requires another $20,000 of work.

Good luck and keep us posted!

[Bainford]

Welcome to the forum, Raphael. Good luck with your search for the right S1. Cheers 

[LotusEuropa]

Thank you once again,

The car of my dreams should be "well driven", but technically and in general allright.

These cars are around 55 years old now, and it would be okay for me, if the car shows traces of its usage.
Some years ago I have owned a classic Renault (60' Dauphine, 40.000 original km, 2nd hand owner) and I loved every scratch of it and even its dents, but it had no rust.

And on the other side, at the moment, I am not interested in restoring the car frame up, as I have another car sitting around and waiting for its completion.

Regards,
Raphael

[dakazman]

 
   Raphael.

   Good luck on your Search, Thank you, for your preservation activities. Care to elaborate a bit more?

"Additionally I am member of the Historic Lotus Register which takes care of the earliest Lotus cars (Mk VI, Seven, Eleven, Elite etc.)"

Dakazman

[surfguitar58]

 
Best of luck with your search.
Tom

[LotusEuropa]

Thanks a lot for your warm welcome.

@Dakazman

At the moment I am only a passive member, but in general:
HLR is a british club which presents itself on several events each year. The club publishs four issues of the clubs magazin each year in which they take a closer look on indiviual cars, the marque Lotus in its early days, important persons, events, technical aspects, ads and so on and so forth. For each model (road and race cars) you can find at least one registrar. I think the clubs work is crucial for the marque Lotus as a whole.
Pretty interesting for our Europa community: In the future there might be the possibility to include also Europas (and Elans). I would love to see this!!

http://www.historiclotusregister.co.uk/index.html

Regards,
Raphael

[lotusfanatic]

Thanks for the links to the advert,

I believe that the S1 for sale is an S1A as it has the following features:

It has slots in the top face of the doors to store the 'pop-in/out' windows found on the S1A models (so somebody may have fitted S1 windows?)

It has a wooden instrument panel as fitted to the S1A & S1B (the S1 cars had aluminium)

Mark

[Rainer]

 

Good luck on your search.

Seems NRW is getting an Europa hotspot.

I think the car seems not bad, but as JB said a close examination of the frame is necessary.
I am pretty sure the car is a S1a like mine, doors dash and even the date of first registration 10/68
The price seems is a bit too high, there have been a few corners cut on the restoration, rusty screws on the bonnet rubbers, cracked dash etc. At this pricepoint the car should be pretty much perfect.

Regards Rainer

[LotusEuropa]

Thank you for your words.

Happy to hear about another German enthusiast here, Rainer.
Sadly Germany seems not to be the country in which the Europa is pretty popular or well known, what do you think?

Regards,
Raphael

[Rainer]

Popular or well known definitely not, i can't remember seeing one in the wild my whole life.

On the other hand, mine is standing in my workshop and i am surprised how often its got recognized correctly, not bad for a car most people only have seen on photos.
But we are doing a lot of old cars and our customer base is probably a bit more car affectionate than the general public.

Regards Rainer