A Lotus Elise as a sensible daily driver?
Towards the end of 2022, I made the decision to part with my modern diesel daily driver and focus my attention on my small fleet of classics, as well as sharing the various demands of family and work transport duties between them. Logically, having sold one car and therefore removed the liability of it from the rest of the fleet, the sensible thing to do would be refraining from buying anything else to take its place. Perhaps unsurprisingly, logic and sense did not prevail and I found myself following up on a car I had seen for sale when attending the Great North Classic Car Show at Beamish earlier in 2022.
I have long admired Lotus as a manufacturer and though I would really like a Series 1 Elan, I am unlikely to be able to afford one of those anytime soon. So when I saw a lovely example of an early Series 2 Elise for sale whilst walking around the car show last summer, I started thinking about how I could justify adding that car to the fleet. At the time I couldn’t really come up with a good reason for getting yet another car, but the sale of the modern Audi provided a space at home and therefore all the justification I needed for getting in touch with the dealer, who still had the Elise for sale.
A test drive was arranged, and I was very impressed with how the Lotus performed, feeling quite unique and more responsive than anything I had driven before. Having identified a few issues which needed to be rectified before sale as the car had been in storage since 2014, a deal was struck and I became the new owner of the featherweight little Lotus.
It was late October when I collected the Elise, and realistically I was never going to be running it through the winter so to date have only driven it properly a handful of times. However, initial impressions are very positive. The lack of mass is the overwhelming characteristic which shines through, and the car seems to change direction or add and lose speed with such ease that every drive is exhilarating. Being an early Series 2 car it has the Rover K-series engine which, if internet comments are to be believed, is almost guaranteed to suffer from head gasket failure at some point.
I am inclined to think that a well-maintained example driven with a degree of mechanical sympathy is unlikely to have this problem, but I suppose time will tell. It does seem to suit the car well, and has a lovely noise along with useful low- down torque characteristics which are quite different I understand from the later Toyota- engined examples which need more revs to get the best out of them. I intend to start using the Elise again in spring, so will keep updates coming on this lovely little modern classic.
My previous report detailed the fact that despite my best efforts the MX5 was still immobile, having blown the main engine control fuse. Happily, after this was replaced and the electric aerial mechanism cleaned and thoroughly lubricated, the car fired back into life and no longer had the aerial draining power from the battery. The car was then pressed into service alongside the Citroën BX as an unlikely winter hack. Being fairly light and nimble, it performed surprisingly well in the wintry conditions despite being rear wheel drive, and was often used in favour of the BX which I was less inclined to get sandblasted by the gritting lorries which keep the north east roads clear. The MX5’s MoT is due
in May and the winter use has undoubtedly taken a toll on the already rusty bodywork, so major repairs for this will likely be on the cards sooner rather than later.
The Puma remained tucked up in the garage over winter as I really couldn’t bring myself to subject the newly painted bodywork to the salty roads. It did, however, benefit from having a few worthwhile jobs completed during that time. The last time the Puma was driven I noticed a distinct squeaking noise from the engine area whilst under load. The cause was found to be the auxiliary drive belt which, although not cracked, had obviously dried out with age. A replacement was sourced from my local Ford dealer, and once fitted that had the car running quietly again.
One of the jobs I intended to do from the outset with the car was to comprehensively rustproof the chassis and box sections to hopefully guard against it becoming another example which is plagued by rot, a fate which many Pumas seem to have suffered. The first task was to get it up on axle stands to remove the wheels and bizarre carpet-like wheelarch liners from all four corners. I imagine the liners were designed to deaden sound, but they also have an uncanny ability to retain moisture which is not great on an already rust-prone car.
Fortunately there was little more than surface rust to deal with behind the liners, and this was mainly confined to the rear inner wheelarches, with the fronts being largely unaffected. The rust was wire brushed back to sound metal and the surface then treated with a rust converter. After this had cured for around 48 hours, I then applied two coats of clear wax to all of the inner wheelarches. This process was repeated on the underside of the chassis and the sill box sections, while the inner skins of all panels were injected with a thinner wax designed to creep into the hard to reach areas.
Having completed this work, the next jobs on the list are to restore the UV- damaged headlight lenses and detail the paintwork to get the car looking its best for 2023. These will be covered in a future report. In the meantime, I am looking forward to getting some use out of the Puma and Elise over the coming months, and giving the BX and MX5 a rest along with some TLC.