Back to Basics - S1 Lotus Elise with a story

[conanius]

So I ve been lucky enough to have some fantastic cars over the years.

My last 3 toys have been:

- 1998 3.4 996 911 Carrera 2 Manual Coupe, an early lightweight, cable throttle car. Without a doubt my favourite Porsche I've owned. It felt amazing.

- 2006 3.4 987 Cayman S Manual. Fantastic spec with some nice aftermarket parts I fitted to make it feel more special

- 2013 3.4 981 Boxster S. Again brilliant spec but almost too good?
?
As I went through these generations of cars, I found myself needing to go faster and faster to enjoy the drive. The Boxster was, truly, sensational, however it felt disconnected from reality. It needed use on private roads at outages leptons per hour to feel on the edge, and candidly, as brilliant as it wasn t, I never gelled with it.

So I decided I wanted a change. With us having a new home to renovate, I also wanted to free up some cash, so I started looking for something cheap and fun.

I saw an interesting looking NC MX5 which someone had done a duratec conversion on, along with cams and ITBs. It sounded pretty interesting. However, at the same time as this, I was considering how I d move on the Boxster. ??By chance, I saw that Sean Flat Six Classics was selling his Personal Elise, a car I knew of that he had replaced his 996 GT3 with. I d always wanted an Elise.

Conversation with Sean followed, and with a useful amount coming back my way, I did what all good people do, and bought the first example of I saw of a car that I wanted. ??The car has some miles. 145,000 of them to be preicse. Whilst the front end has been resprayed, the car has plenty of, patina. This is a good thing. I have grown tired of getting thoroughly annoyed and upset at people damaging my cars over the years. This is a car I can use and whilst I ll look after it, I don t need to care when it gets a mark.

The car has *a lot* of history - I'll share the for sale advert....

Original Advert said:

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.

So, miles it may have, but it wants for nothing. It drives absolutely beautifully. ??

I m going to head up and see Dan at HPE and get him to give it a once over . And then my fun will begin.

Edited by conanius on Saturday 18th April 21:51

[castex]

I, too, have always wanted an Elise. Yours looks lush.

[bigmowley]

They are great cars that just seem to be able to soak up mileage and abuse. I think it’s the relative simplicity and light weight that helps. My S1 is barely run in at 66K and I have another in our storage facility which is immaculate at 90K odd miles. The availability of reasonably priced parts must also help. Nimble cars that can be enjoyed at sane speeds on normal roads. Love mine.

[Mr Tidy]

That looks lovely - and tiny!

[Mikebentley]

I love an Elise for what it is but could never buy one due to how harsh the ride was on anything other than perfect surfaces. I tried to get on with them but always went back to a hot hatch.

[AB]

conanius said:

Brilliant!

[jules_s]

bigmowley said:

They are great cars that just seem to be able to soak up mileage and abuse. I think it s the relative simplicity and light weight that helps. My S1 is barely run in at 66K and I have another in our storage facility which is immaculate at 90K odd miles. The availability of reasonably priced parts must also help. Nimble cars that can be enjoyed at sane speeds on normal roads. Love mine.

I was tempted but went down the VX220 route

Great little cars - you can carry so much speed into/through/out corners it surprises many

[conanius]

Thanks for all the replies folks.

Mikebentley said:

I love an Elise for what it is but could never buy one due to how harsh the ride was on anything other than perfect surfaces. I tried to get on with them but always went back to a hot hatch.

So what I didn't say, was how utterly impressed I am with the ride. This car has S2 Bilsteins that have been rebuilt - and frankly its incredible. Its better than my 981 was with PASM (Sport or Comfort Modes). Sure, you get rattling as its made from cornflake packet paper mache and Mr Kipling Cherry Bakewell tins, but it feels so planted over bumps and poor road surfaces its almost mind bending.

jules_s said:

I was tempted but went down the VX220 route

Great little cars - you can carry so much speed into/through/out corners it surprises many

I was really tempted to get a VX220 Turbo, I actually really like the styling, however only the 2.2 got my favourite colour (Mandarin?). I drove a turbo and found it fantastic and always assumed the 2.2 would feel gutless - Driving this with a 1.8 135 engine tells me different now ! You don't need buckets of power when you don't have to slow down for a corner !!

[conanius]

A quick update on this.

I thought I'd be adventurous and try reaching out to the previous owner who had done lots of the work on the car during his time at Porsche and Lotus - Excitingly, they got in touch and have shared *a lot* of amazing info and pictures about the car.

He was incredibly patient and answered many (many) questions. I think the short version is what I knew, but now have proof - this car is an absolute peach.

Firstly, an absolute avalanche of photos....



Yes, it would be lovely if I sorted them into the story, but I've had a hell of a job even getting the things uploaded so forgive me.

In there you'll see:

- Full front end rebuild including, uprated all alloy rad, uprated cooling fan, new headlights with stainless steel brackets (sprayed in black), refurbished heater matrix and heater unit

- Gearbox rebuild, reinforced seals and steel cased bearings. Not a B4BP, but great to know its in good order - uprated gear linkage and cables, new clutch inc new slave and master cylinder,

- Engine rebuild including new valves, new piston liners, uprated oil ladder, 2 layer head gasket, 135 cams, Bell and Colvill sports exhaust, Trophy 52mm throttle body, vvc intake, uprated oil and water pumps with metal impellers and higher flow rate, Westfield ECU which apparently has a bit more low down grunt in its map

- Tyre testing in the Lotus R&D Space, including some prototypes in the background (Exige V6 and Evora 400)

- Uprated suspension, including uprated adjustable toe arm links, refreshed arms and bushes, S2 Bilsteins - rebuilt with a slightly different flavour, stainless steel fasteners etc. Replaced brake lines and braided hoses, all calipers rebuild with fresh seals etc

- Lots of random things like new fuel pump, new fuel lines, new alternator, engine mounts, wiper, wiper arm, windscreen, steering rack (standard Ratio), wheel bearings, new floors, larger volume alu fuel tank, all new samco coolant hoses, subframe regalvanised

so...yeah... its up together.... !!

Car is being booked into Allon White in early June for:

- Major Service inc cambelt, including upgrading to Millers 10w50 NT+ CFS Oil and RBF600 Brake Fluid
- New Roof - current sadly has a couple of holes
- Dash trimmed in Alcantara - starting to crack around the dash vents, want to tidy this up
- Clocks removed and sticker replaced - the dreaded sticker peel has begun
- *hopefully* two new stack gauges (Oil Temp and Oil Pressure) - seems prudent for visibility as I plan to use it on track !
- Baffled Sump - as above !
- Whilst the car already has a low tempt thermostat, I will be having the thermostat relocation kit (PRRT) fitted - and again ! but also as it seems to be the right thing to do.

That will quickly keep the car on point. I do like the ideal of getting a K6 Emerald ECU, some head work by DVA and a B4BP gearbox with lightweight flywheel and Quaife ATB.... but I might wait a year now I realise just how much has been done to it !!

[bigmowley]

Re your last paragraph.
Just do it!!! That spec is almost exactly what’s mine is: 111S, DVA head, Emerald, fancy manifold, Quaife LSD etc etc. It’s simply the best fun ever! The diff is totally amazing, transformed the car. It’s like a giant go cart but with no vices, it will drift forever and do donuts in its own length, but without any annoying understeer at all. I posted this picture before but after I fitted the diff I can do donuts inside my garage