1997 LOTUS ELISE

One of the very first "green glue" chassis Lotus Elise Series 1 cars and built between December 1996 and January 1997, P330NOP has led an amazing life over the last 29 years. The car has now covered 145,215 miles in the hands of 11 owners, so this is really the antithesis of the "low owners, low mileage" garage queens that tend to hog the classic car limelight. However, the raw numbers don’t tell the full story of this superb little car, which has benefitted from significant love and attention throughout its life, and in particular during a 13 year period from 2008 to 2021 when it was owned by a Dutch automotive engineer.

Ordered in Azure Blue, the Certificate of Conformity from Lotus Cars shows that chassis number SCC111YN1VHA10488 was completed on 8th January 1997, and first registered as P330NOP on 14th March 1997. It had a few owners over the first ten years, with 10 stamps in the tiny (…lightweight!) Maintenance Record up to the end of 2007 and 67,576 miles.

The accompanying history file runs to three full A4 folders, with literally hundreds of maintenance and parts invoices from about July 1999 onwards.

The most interesting period of the car’s life started in 2008. The person I bought the car from said in an email to me in December 2024,

“The gent who owned it prior to me bought the car in 2008 and exported it to the Netherlands where he was living at the time. He lived and worked all over central Europe as a test driver for Porsche and, this is the part I love, the Porsche employees had a Lotus S1 community. This particular car was one of two used to help test and develop the central wiper mechanism on the Porsche 918 Spyder would you believe.

This is where the mileage came from and then the car was registered back in the UK during 2014 when his time at Porsche ended and he came to work at Lotus. I have lots of German service info from the period to back up the claims and from what I can tell Porsche were very kind to this little Elise and pampered it for its service.”

The car arrived back in the UK in 2014 sporting a healthy 123,716 miles on the clock, and with the owner now working at Lotus Cars in Hethel, he invested lots of time and effort in fully refurbishing the car. This included a full engine rebuild in 2017/18 to Sport 135 specification, a gearbox rebuild in 2018, both at around 139,000 miles. New floors, Bilstein suspension, fuel tank, ancillaries, exhaust system, lights, etc etc.

Mr Hubben eventually sold P330NOP in April 2021 to another Elise enthusiast owner, who continued to improve the car, this time with a full interior retrim in tan leather at Allon White Sports Cars. I bought the car in December 2024 with the intention of doing a few track days and local car meets a year, but work and life has got in the way resulting in just a couple of hundred miles covered in the past year.

I had the car serviced and inspected by James Webb at South West Lotus Centre in December 2025, he said it was a great car that drove really well. Please call Sean on 07595 455568 with any questions or to arrange to come and see the car. This is a private sale and not connected in any way to my business Flat Six Classics.