Thread: What do you guys think about a Lotus Elan?

so i was just doing some browsing, and i come across lotus elan's i really didnt kno to much about them besides there FWD, turboed Izuzu motor...but can someone answer me this...WHY ARE THEY SO CHEAP LOL?

are they not good cars?

Kind of rubbish... I rode in one that was in very good condition... felt like riding in a fancy Civic or Corrola to be honest....

pshh thats no fun lol, are they quick?

If you are talking about the original Elan - > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Elan

They are the typical underpowered by very light 'mommentum' cars - like a Miata with soul.

They are always listed on the 'top sports cars of history' - it's cultish - as with most older Lotus. If you get one, there is a fairly good support network of owners that are all DIYers, so they have the knowledge of repair, maintaining, parts, ....etc

As with most older Lotus - the current quality depends tremendously on how the previous owners cared for it.

The series 2 was a flop - build quality much better but was a car without a market and never sold.

okay yea i was talkin about the 90's body style, like there was some with like 40k miles and they was goin for 14k. lol that thing looks like it came with a pretty decent size turbo on it lol i wanna say a t28. but i wouldnt mind owning one itll def. be different around these parts

It was a pretty cool engineering experiment for it's time....

The M100 Elan used a 1,588 cc double overhead camshaft (DOHC) 16-valve engine, sourced from the Isuzu Gemini and extensively modified by Lotus (a third generation of this engine was later used in the Isuzu Impulse), which produced 162 horsepower (121 kW). 0–60 acceleration time was measured by Autocar and Motor magazine at 6.5 seconds, and a top speed of 137 mph (220 km/h) was recorded.

dang...lol i think itll be a lil fun project car, im pretty sure u can slap a boost controller on it and reflash the ecu and etc.?

They may be so cheap because Lotus sold the tooling and you can now buy a Kia Elan, but only in Korea if I'm not mistaken...

a kia really? wow thats crazy is it worth spending the money on?