RE: Lotus Europa (Type 121) | PH Used Buying Guide

[911Spanker]

Don't see the point of these cars really.

[pquinn]

Pistom said:

highway said:

If you smash a headlight then you write the car off as you can’t buy headlights for it anymore.
Who would buy one knowing that?

One reason for stopping using my VX220 as a daily car was that headlamps were very expensive but I don't think I'd turn down a car because of lack of parts availability.

Not being able to get parts is inevitable with rare cars so you just accept that as part of the equation.

Slightly harder to stomach lack of parts when the cars were still relatively new (which means someone probably binned the stock), and when you know they're so rare & not especially popular so that no-one is going to bother sorting out any future supply & there's not a big pool of used to raid either.

[Sporky]

911Spanker said:

Don't see the point of these cars really.

It's a comfier Elise with a turbo.

You may be on the wrong site.

[V96GLF]

Very nice and well-researched article, and perhaps it will spark some interest in the cars currently for sale… including mine!

[swisstoni]

pquinn said:

Pistom said:

highway said:

If you smash a headlight then you write the car off as you can’t buy headlights for it anymore.
Who would buy one knowing that?

One reason for stopping using my VX220 as a daily car was that headlamps were very expensive but I don't think I'd turn down a car because of lack of parts availability.

Not being able to get parts is inevitable with rare cars so you just accept that as part of the equation.

Slightly harder to stomach lack of parts when the cars were still relatively new (which means someone probably binned the stock), and when you know they're so rare & not especially popular so that no-one is going to bother sorting out any future supply & there's not a big pool of used to raid either.

This is where active owners clubs, specialists and helpful original manufacturers come in.
I don’t know the Lotus world at all, but I find it a bit surprising.

[p4cks]

They had to do something with all of those unsold VX220 Turbos, so they did this.

[GTRene]

loved those interiors on these Europa's specially in the SE.

there are sometimes SE cars via mobile, I believe this is one? or the translation from Italian to ? I don't understand, but they talk about it and has the power, maybe its upgraded to SE? or is it the real deal? anyways, this example

https://suchen.mobile.de/fahrzeuge/details.html?id...

oh, here a real one for sure?

https://www.autoscout24.nl/aanbod/lotus-europa-se-...

Edited by GTRene on Sunday 12th February 13:10

[DonkeyApple]

Always liked these. Probably why they never sold many.

They strike me as a great way to keep an affordable, silly toy as everything else we drive slowly turns electric.

[AICB]

The original Mclaren GT

[Panamax]

Sporky said:

I test drove an SE, and it was magnificent. All that stopped me from buying it was my inability to get out without sliding my race along the ground as my limbs failed to negotiate the metre-wide sills and letter-box sized door aperture.

Yes, that's the catch with these cars and their various hard-top relations. The doors look big enough from outside but when you open them the sill continues to limit access.

My hope was they'd get all of this sorted out with M250 but sadly that car never came to fruition.

[NGK210]

They’re a cracking steer, perfect for B-roads, room for luggage. And IME, a quieter motorway cruiser than a 996 C4S.

Difficult to photograph; looks much sweeter in the GRP – ie, don’t be put off by pics in ads, go and have a proper look. The styling has aged well. From some angles there’s a whiff of Carrera GT.

Only negative is entry / egress: anyone over 5’ 10” needs hardcore limbo-dancing skills, but once inside it’s comfy enough if you’re 6ft+.

[Bencolem]

There’s a reason they didn’t sell many of these when new and it’s funny how they’re now being remembered with rose tinted glasses.

They were pretty roundly panned when new as neither being as good to drive as a regular Elise not really any more practical (ease of ingress / egress / noise etc) meaning you might as well buy the Elise and definitely not as good looking which means you really should buy the Elise.

Never seem to have dropped below £20k though which is what I guess rarity does for you.

[Nickp82]

Really like these, including the looks. There was one being sold via the trade this week in a very nice (Canyon I think) Red , it looked fantastic.
I don’t think I’d make the jump to buy one though sadly as it has one crucial difference to my Elise - a fixed roof.

[ewand]

I had a hankering for one of these after reading a Steve Cropley article in Autocar about a blat to the Jim Clarke room in the borders, in one of the last Europas (probably an SE I guess). After seeing and sitting in one at a Goodwood Breakfast Club, I decided to get one and that if I was going to do it, then I might as well try to get an SE. Expecting to spend years looking, a few weeks later, I bought - unseen - the only Persian Blue SE they ever made, from the PH Classifieds no less. There is at least one Persian Blue S which had the SE wheels added (and maybe other Becker upgrades).

Here it was - https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

TBH, I never really clicked with the drivetrain. The gearchange was nice but not S2000 nice, and the turbo lag and flat blare of the exhaust compared to the NA bark of the much-less powerful Elise I'd only got shortly before meant, to me, it was less pleasurable to drive even though it was a lot faster.

I often thought if they had followed up the Europa SE with a model based on a Supercharged S2 Elise but with the same brakes as the SE (which were phenomenal), it would be a sweet spot.

I put a Chris Tullet exhaust on mine - some before/after vids on
Exterior: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KGnkF9c-Vk and
Interior: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6Lr9vZnI-c

The exhaust certainly added some drama and helped to mask one of the most annoying things about the car - the continual squeaks and rattles that came from all around the cabin. It was like playing whack-a-mole using tile wedges and bits of old windscreen wiper to shove into gaps to stop the supposedly deluxe leather and plastic from rubbing like mad. Fine Napa leather it was not - more like DFS grade.

From some angles, I think the Europa looks amazing - follow one down a twisty road and you'll see it as something really distinct from other Lotus (pl.)
They are rare and some of the parts are unobtainable (eg light clusters). I bought mine in 2012 for - I think - £19k and after putting a few grand into it to fix issues its previous owner had neglected, I think I sold it for about £23k a few years later so it probably broke even. Given what I know the current owner has done to the Persian car, I suspect I'd need a lot more than that to buy it back...

And who doesn't love a NACA duct, eh?

[DonkeyApple]

Bencolem said:

There’s a reason they didn’t sell many of these when new and it’s funny how they’re now being remembered with rose tinted glasses.

They were pretty roundly panned when new as neither being as good to drive as a regular Elise not really any more practical (ease of ingress / egress / noise etc) meaning you might as well buy the Elise and definitely not as good looking which means you really should buy the Elise.

Never seem to have dropped below £20k though which is what I guess rarity does for you.

There was tremendous bile towards them from the Elise community on PH back then. It was quite odd.

[Cold]

p4cks said:

They had to do something with all of those unsold VX220 Turbos, so they did this.

It was more intended to be a Proton sports car with manufacturing slated to be based in Malaysia. Once that idea was canned the project got moved back to Hethel whereby the virtually complete project cost buttons to launch.

[CedricN]

I really like these, I was looking to import one from the uk when prices and the £ were better 10 something years ago. But they actually never got cheap, apparently it wasnt only me who wanted them as time went on. I was after the Elise driving feel but with a more livable interior, and a robust boosted engine.

[samoht]

ballans said:

Black S2K said:

IIRC, they're Integra DC5 units.
Try Amayama dot com..?

I thought they would come from somewhere else and Honda looks right. Was thinking it might have been from the pre facelift Jag XF but too early.

I reckon not, I think the DC5 lights are taller to flow into the higher wings that cover its McPherson struts, shape looks different to me

[mikEsprit]

Neat, but ugly.

The interior looks very nice, though. I don't remember that about them.

[MattsCar]

Around 2015, I remember very nice examples being as low as £15-17k, maybe even less.