1985 Lotus Excel

First registered in October 1985, this 2.2-litre Lotus Excel with a 5-speed manual gearbox has served 8 owners, including our vendor, but appears to have covered fewer than 50,000 miles in total. This low mileage is probably genuine but with little or no history it cannot be validated.

The current owner bought the car from a bodyshop in Doncaster in June 2018. They had taken it in as part of a handful of cars from a private collection but it wasn’t the kind of car that they typically worked on.

Our vendor has had a few Lotuses (Loti?) previously and grabbed the opportunity that this one presented. He was so confident of its mechanical reliability that he drove it from Doncaster to see family in Leeds and then a few days later back home to Cornwall.

If Leeds to Cornwall sounds impressive for a Lotus sports car then how about this? A few months after that he drove it onto the ferry in Plymouth and then from Santander to Coín near Malaga in southern Spain - a drive of 1000 km.

He had a local specialist garage do some work on the car (as reported in History Highlights) and some while later drove it back to the UK. He’s done this Costa del Sol round trip twice now, with more trips up to Leeds too, but both Brexit and Covid have made it rather difficult getting in and out of the country in a car, so rather than leave it in the UK for long periods, he has decided to sell.

The exterior is coloured in Lotus’s A34 Dark Blue (Essex) paint with black window surrounds (these days referred to as shadowline trim) with a gold coachline and rubber side strips which seal the junction of the upper and lower body moulds. There are some small dings in this strip on the nearside nose and above the offside rear wheel arch but mostly the trim is in good condition.

The paint around the nose is a little rough, with scuffs and scratches on the front bumper and pimpling across the bonnet. Elsewhere though the coating seems to have fared a little better, although there are a few scuffs and dings on some of the panel edges and stone chips on the rear of each wheel arch. There doesn’t appear to be any damage to the bodywork and all the other fittings and trims seem in good order.

This Excel sits on the optional 15-inch Speedline alloy wheels, which look in very good order with Lotus gold-inscribed centre caps and Lotus valve covers. All are fitted with matching GT Radial Champiro tyres dated 2018.

A matching set of tyres rings a little bell for us to expect a well looked after vehicle with maintenance and repairs carried out without any shortcuts on expenditure. Whilst this does seem to follow that rule of thumb, the lack of any invoices in this case makes it hard to prove.

The interior is in a pale grey-blue vinyl leatherette with velour seat facings. There is age-related wear across most of the interior surfaces including the dash top and seats. The colouring is fading and has been worn away on corners and edges and there are a few splits or tears in the vinyl, such as at a seam on the dash top, the base of a headrest and a larger split in the handbrake gaiter.

The fabric facings are similarly worn and there is what looks like an older cigarette burn in the middle of the driver’s seat base. At the top of the +2 seats in the rear, on what could be referred to as the parcel shelf, there is more severe wear and tear - especially above the offside seat.

The “Design Giugiaro” steering wheel is made by Personal - who you may not have heard of but who were very big in Formula 1 and supplied wheels to many of the sporting marques. They now own the Nardi brand - who most will have heard of.

The gear knob is a wooden affair, which is echoed on the seat tilt levers - a quirky touch that you rarely see. The original stereo has been replaced by a more modern JVC DVD/DAB unit, pumping through Pioneer speakers. As far as we’ve been able to test, the electrics and interior equipment all work as expected.

The carpets are a little worn, as you might expect, but intact throughout with the addition of fitted overmats. Up above, the grey headlining is clean and mostly taut with slight sagging at rear where it is coming unstuck.

Stereo aside, the interior seems to be 100% original and is well worthy of repair and rejuvenation rather than any wholesale retrim, but the new owner can happily take their time to decide as it’s a perfectly functional and comfortable interior.

Your writer is a rather tall chap with long legs and feels it worth pointing out that with the driver’s seat fully rearward, he was at full stretch to operate the clutch. Moving the seat forward is something he rarely has to do. To counter this space though, the +2 seats in the rear don’t offer much room for fully grown humans.

Under the bonnet, the acoustic lining is intact and in good order and generally the engine bay too is mostly clean and tidy. The Dellorto carbs look less tidy but seem to operate correctly - so too the air duct covering - but, the odd nut and bolt aside, there are no signs of anything more than surface rust.

As you might expect of a composite-bodied car on a galvanized chassis, there is no corrosion anywhere underneath - aside from surface rust on the front suspension and steering components. There are no signs of significant damage either, although there are one or two patch repairs to the underbody. The exhaust looks like it is a stainless steel system and is in good order and the standard rear suspension has been replaced fairly recently with adjustable coilovers.

Inside the boot, which is adequate but perhaps smaller than you might expect, the carpet and linings are fairly clean and tidy. To one side is the battery and underneath the floor is a full size spare wheel, jack and tool roll.

The Excel’s most recent MOT expired in October last year, although it had passed with no advisories at that test and the one the year before. Prior to 2018 there is then a large gap with no inspections back to October 2005.

It’s not yet quite old enough for exemption, so the new owner will have to get it tested before they can take the car out on the road.

Although there is a printed workshop manual which fills an A4 ring binder, there’s nothing in the way of a history file for this Lotus and even with the 2005 MOT recording the mileage at 48,862 miles there’s nothing prior to that to validate it as the true mileage.

We understand from the vendor that the car has been serviced in his ownership (last 3 years) with new belts, radiator re-cored, brakes, pads, rear suspension and tyres fitted.

While we admire Colin Chapman’s legacy and the Norfolk-firm’s ability to weave magic from the humblest of mechanical components, we’d also be the first to admit that the company’s erstwhile attitude towards build quality does sometimes make it hard to put your money where your mouth is. Unless, of course, you buy one like this that was a collaboration with Toyota who have become synonymous with reliability.

The car runs very well once warmed up and (before he knew about the Spain trips) this writer felt confident enough to take it for a short test drive around the business park. The clutch is somewhat binary, but once you get used to it the car drives and handles very well, albeit with the feel of a classic car rather than a modern, and it begs for you to take off in third gear with plenty of revs.

Out of 2075 built, there are only just over 400 still registered in the UK, and 70% of those are on a SORN, so if you get this Excel taxed and MOT’d, you’ll be one of around 120 on the UK’s roads.

But it is still a Lotus with no history, and not one of the more desirable models - even though it has similar engineering to the S3 Esprit - so we can only estimate it to sell for somewhere between £3,000 and £7,000 with NO RESERVE set.

If you’re still reading, you probably know enough about these cars to recognise a bargain when you see one, and an opportunity to get behind the wheel of an uncommon car which promises a good deal of reliable driving fun. It is a very usable sports car and totally original-looking and with just a bit of cosmetic attention, it could be a real star.

Viewing is always encouraged, and this particular car is located with us at The Market HQ near Abingdon; We are open Mon-Fri 9.00 am to 5.00 pm.  To arrange an appointment please use the ‘Contact Seller’ button at the top of the listing. Feel free to ask any questions or make observations in the comments section below, or try our ‘Frequently Asked Questions’.