1990 Lotus Elan SE Turbo

First registered at the beginning of August 1990, this Lotus Elan SE Turbo has since had 10 keepers, but is showing less than 74,000 miles.

Early in its life the car was given a Category C notice - which meant that it had to be professionally repaired to return to the road. It isn’t known exactly what happened, possibly frontal damage, but the vendor has inspected the car thoroughly and can’t find any issues.

Four years ago, the car underwent an extensive refurbishment, which is documented in the history file with a hand-written expenditure sheet. The owner at the time wasn’t able to fully complete the work before moving to the Middle East and the current owner bought the car from him in late 2019.

Over the cold months that followed, our vendor got the lights working, fixed the hood mechanism and rebuilt the rear suspension. He then stripped back the rear undersides and repainted underneath in the correct epoxy finish. He’s also done his best to cut back the areas where the repaint wasn’t at its best (more later on).

It has covered around 4,000 miles in the last few years and the seller says that it’s never let him down, including a 600-mile round trip where it performed faultlessly. He’s selling to make space for an Alfa Romeo Spider S2 project - a very understandable choice.

The Lotus Elan SE turbo came in a variety of mostly bold or classic colours including bright red, yellow and blue - but in keeping with its heritage, British Racing Green was also a popular option and here is an example of just that.

The fibreglass composite bodywork is in good order and the paint - redone in 2017 - is presentable although not perfect. There is an excess of paint - a ripple if you like - just behind the passenger door handle and more such blobs around the aerial on the offside rear deck. As you might expect on a car of this nature, there are also a handful of stone chips and other blemishes on the nose. One of the rear light lenses has a small crack in it.

The black mohair folding hood fabric was replaced two years ago and is therefore in pretty good condition.

The Elan sits on its original 15-inch 7-spoke OZ alloy wheels, which were repainted in 2017 along with the bodywork and refitted with Toyo Proxes on the fronts at the same time, the rears are shod with BF Goodrich Profilers dated 2001.

During the refurbishment, almost as much was spent on the inside as on the exterior. The interior was given a full retrim to the seats, door cards and gaiters and it is in a lovely condition.

The seats sport a dark green leather piped in a contrasting yellow with laurel-wreathed Lotus motifs embroidered into the headrests. The same leather is inlaid on the door cards and on top of the instrument binnacle and the rest is in a black leather - all of it stitched in yellow.

The hard plastic trims like the centre console look a little dated in comparison to the finish of the leathers and vinyls but it isn’t so easy to refresh. A modern stereo with MP3 player, remote control and Bluetooth connection has been installed. As far as we’ve been able to test, all electrics work as they should.

The carpets are in good order and also have protective overmats. In the glove box are a Lotus F1 umbrella and beanie hat.

Under the bonnet, the engine bay looks in good order, with the 1588cc 16V turbocharged Isuzu-Lotus power plant nicely packaged into a relatively small space. Everything appears well looked after but still carries the honest dirt that you’d expect to see, rather than having been detailed to hide any issues. We can say that the engine sounds very strong and gives a few cheeky pops from the exhaust on the overrun.

The undersides are largely clean and tidy, with no obvious signs of damage or corrosion. It looks like the underbody components were painted during the refurbishment and with only around 4,000 miles driven since, they remain in a presentable condition. The stainless exhaust appears intact and undamaged.

Inside the smallish boot, the carpet and linings look fairly clean and intact. Underneath the floor is a temporary-use spare wheel and tyre, plus a scissor jack. There is auxiliary wiring into the boot which we assume was for the reversing camera mentioned in the refurbishment log but possibly since removed.

The car has a current MOT valid until May 2022, having recently passed with no advisories after fettling the handbrake. There are a handful of tests recorded online back to 2006, documenting the mileage progression and suggesting a few short periods off the road.

The history file includes numerous invoices for parts and work done, including recent bills for sundry parts.

It also includes a hand written expenditure log from June 2017 onwards, detailing the purchase and refurbishment of the car, totalling £10,717. It included a full exterior repaint, cabin retrim and a stainless steel exhaust, as well as countless other replacements and improvements. There are several photos of the car during the refurbishment and repaint.

The car comes with two keys, the model-appropriate registration number “E14N OO” (with the errant space thrown in for free), a small collection of spare or removed parts and a fitted indoor cover.

Although the M100 Lotus Elan isn’t yet accepted as a genuine collectors’ Lotus, they drive brilliantly and have pretty good reliability. Sadly there are still those who refuse to accept that anything with a front-wheel-drive chassis can ever be a proper sports car, let alone a Lotus - but it’s their loss that they won’t give these capable cars a proper look.

That’s where those with a more open mind can take advantage, because prices have stayed way below where we think they’ll eventually get to. If an early Mazda MX-5 can go for well into five figures, then the more agile M100 Elan must surely be worth at least the same.

But the modern classics market is what it is and we think that even a nice example like this will probably only fetch between £7,000 and £11,000. That is a real travesty considering the performance, handling and dependability you are getting for your money.

Viewing is always encouraged, and this particular car is located with us at The Market HQ near Abingdon; 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’.