Left hand cars cost a fortune over here. Thats why theres a healthy market in right hookers. The difference works out at about £8K more for similar cars/spec/year. Realistically I dont imagine much grief, particularly with the level of performance involved. I've driven a Citroen 2cv with rhd for the last 6 years so an Elise 'R' should just about be usable

Thanks for the replies. The budgets less of a problem now and has increased to around 20K. The insanity has taken over to the extent that I've thrown caution to the wind in my quest for the holy grail The cars are there but theyre all with dealers which I find frustrating. Still dont understand why private sellers hold out for greater sums when selling privately and then capitulate to a dealer who then sells it for hardly more than the original price, but with the £2-3000 margin. Is it to much to ask to buy a car at trade price plus a bit, rather than retail price when buying privately. Just look at all the ads and explain to me why so many trade sales and so few private sales. Never forget these trade sales come from somewhere
Anyway, come what may this week should be very decisive

Excellent, well done, now get one bought!
08 plate at £20k would be where my money would go as the later cars are(slightly)better built and will hold its value better.
You can't really go wrong with any on that list to be honest, just make sure you do the ususal checks before parting with your cash.

Congratulations, you'll wonder why you did'nt do it earlier

Sorry but never in a million years even if it is only badge snobbery

Yup. If you're going down the type 116 route it has to be a Turbo.

The nasp car needs too much doing to it and by the time you've done the work to get the car handling the way Lotus intended, plus given the engine the power it needs to overcome the inferiority complex associated with the badge snobs (they're fools IMO, but at least they're honest - everyone loves cars for their own reasons, I respect honesty - the worst are the sort who cook up complete BS about the cars when they really mean 'I really think having a Lotus badge on my car is worth several thousand pounds' but can't even be honest to *themselves* about it), it's not the insane bargain it was to begin with.

Find a car that's had the work done (wheels, suspension, inlet manifold, exhaust, removal of balancer shafts at a minimum) and you may have a super bargain. However the only reason to choose the nasp Speedster, really, is because it's the Elise with the highest amount of Lotus content (due to the Z22SE engine, which had a very significant amount of Lotus input, i.e. they designed it for GM - the Z22SE is basically a Lotus engine). I don't know how many people there are out there who are both such Lotus enthusiasts that they insist that their car has the absolute maximum Lotus content possible (i.e. reject the Elise due to Rover or Toyota engines, neither of which were designed or built by Lotus) - but also badge anti-snobs who are happy with their 'maximum Lotus content' car actually being a Vauxhall or Opel. It almost seems impossible to be both - you'd have do manage some pretty adept doublethink to avoid melting your brain down in contradictions

The thing is that if you want an Elise variant with the highest possible Lotus content, and you believe that the engine is the inescapable *heart* of the car and *must* have the manufacturer's DNA at the very least, if not be both designed *and* built by the manufacturer, then the closest you'll get is a nasp VX220 / Speedster with the Z22SE engine and replacement of the Vauxhall / Opel badges with Lotus ones. This will cause the badge snobs to sneer, since they think those round badges are seriously worth several thousand pounds and putting £10 stick-on copies on an arguably more-Lotus-than-theirs vehicle is sacrilege.


However this old argument has now been settled (more or less) in my mind (re: Elises, owned both the Vauxhall turbo variant, the S1 Lotus variant; and now two S2 Exiges). Whilst Chris Randall will happily point out that the Z20LEH engine (newer version of the engine in the VX220 turbo) is fitted to the Europa, which he can lighten to below 1000 kg (i.e. down to the weight of my S2 Exige) and uprate to 400 bhp or so, and the badge snobs will acquiesce to the fact that the Europa has Lotus badges fitted *as standard*, the Z20LEx engines don't really have much in the way of Lotus DNA.

The real Lotus engine is the nasp one in the VX220. But Vauxhall stifled it for various boring-car reasons and as standard it's a shockingly underpowered engine. In fact, as a standard motor, it's good going that the engine doesn't wear 'Lotus' on the cam covers because it'd be truly embarrassing. However Lotus don't just forget engine designs like that - instead, after the VX220 turbo died with the Z20LET being the 2.0 turbo Vauxhall offering, and then the Europa completely missed the opportunity for an 'all-Lotus' design by using the uprated Z20LEH engine… when Lotus had developed the Z20NET engine for GM, which was effectively a 2 litre version of the Z22SE (the L850 aluminium block and head) but turbocharged… standard power 210 bhp but Saab sold a 240 bhp version. Now that engine *was* a Lotus heart - why the hell wasn't it in the Europa's Lotus body?


Perhaps the truly insane would consider taking an Elise and doing an engine swap with the Z20NET from the Saab 9-3. Lotus body, soul and badge, Lotus designed and developed engine, reasonable amount of power. And given that this engine is used in the USA a lot then there'll be big tuning packages for it. And no 'Vauxhall' stigma, because some of us still think Saab were really cool back in the day

From a quick search it appears that the VX220 owners club have picked up on the fact that the Z20NET is basically a turbo'd Z22SE (and hence a Lotus engine, effectively) and cheap too. However no Lotus owners appear interested. Whilst a Toyota badge or even a Rover badge is acceptable in the engine bay, a Saab badge on an engine designed and developed by Lotus is not???? How bizarre.

Europa, but out of the budget for this discussion.

Simon

Just had a look at the classifieds, good grief there are some bargains to be had.

I only bought my Elise two years ago but it seems I'll take a bath on it. '09 cars for not much over £20k. Amazing.

And when you can get an Elise SC for that sort of money it makes the RGB Elise at £39k seem crazy.

Surely with the high power versions of the Elise not being unavailable from next year, some value will slowly return to 'R' and 'SC' models from here?

Hi. Its a security thing. Already thinking about where I'm going to park the car when Im out. Dont really want to add the 'what if some tt with a knife wants to get revenge by slicing the soft top' Im sure there are victims out there of 'vandalism' of this nature. Perhaps if someone could give me an idea of how much a soft top would cost to replace it could reduce this to a less critical item

Hi.
I've just got me first Elise & I'm 51, must be catching. lol
Only had it a few hour & love it.
Enjoy yours when you get it...