Let’s properly introduce myself (and sorry for my imperfect English).
Since a few years a had a Lotus Elan M100, not a proper Lotus according to a lot of guys, but a very capable and reliable car, which I drove on a nearly daily bases. Put more then 40K Km’s on it and enjoyed every single one of them.
Because I was back then new in the scene, and didn’t really know anything about the brand, I drove some Lotus trips and discovered my dream car… an S2 Exige.
2 years ago a bought the next best thing, an Elise 111R and converted it into an Elige. Beautiful thing ! But not the real thing.
It had 160K Km when I bought it, so I was on the lookout for a better, low mileage one…
A year later (feb 23), I finally found it, within my budget.
I Facetimed Tim (my 2 right hands), and bought it… with some work to do
A phonecall later with my Lotus centre, I learned it was one the Motorsports rebuild Exiges.
I couldn’t really believe it, but the website of 111racers, showed my VIN, so it’s the real deal.
Please do not worry about your English. We have some people from Lancashire on here and they barely have a grasp of the language despite being English.
You will find a lot of information on the forum and we have a lot of very knowledgeable people to help you.
Really interested to see how this car progresses.
I tried to find the formal owner of the car to see if he still had stuff laying around.
It was Olivier Spaminato a French Champion of rally and hillclimb.
I reached out to him and he was pleasantly surprised someone took care of his wrecked car.
He had some bits and pieces left (frontpanel of the hardtop, intake scoops, a second key and the original handbook and maintenance book).
Good : the chassis is in perfect condition, not a single bump, bend or tear.
The motor ran and sounded fine. The seats were original and in good condition. Bad : nearly all the rest…
So we needed :
new OEM exhaust (I don’t like cars that only sound like sportscars)
Rear clam
Side clam (drivers side)
Diffuser
Mechanism of the trunk
Coolant expansion vessel
Battery and bracket for battery
Completely new wishbones and toe-links (only the Ohlin shocks were good)
So I searched the net and found Exiges.com a usefull source (thank you all).
The first thing I ordered was a steering wheel with a flat bottom, because I’m 190cm tall and the interior is cramped. I couldn’t get in the car with the rollcage installed
Next up : the new wishbones and toe-links with ball joints. Elise-spares was for me the place to go because of their extra-strong metal. I wanted a complete set because it’s the connection between car and road.
On Amazon I found the OEM wheel bearings at a bargain only 76€ !
Further up : new brake disks (they were all worn out) from EBC, handbrake cable, brake pads (Brembo), headlamp seals, headlamps (Tim had a new set, so that was covered).
The rear engine mount is the same as a Toyota MR2, found a spare one at a local Toyota dealer.
Nearly all the other parts (exhaust, heatshields, etc.) were found on Ebay, LeBonCoin, … I was on a budget, remember.
The exhaust was not difficult to find since so many people want to upgrade their exhaust to get bigger bangs.
I wanted to keep the fire extinguisher panel, because the looks are cool and original.
Because the rollcage had to go, the string for the electrical cut-off switch couldn’t be re-installed.
We made a new connection in the dash-board so all cables are clean. There is now a switch near the steering column to put power on the fire extinguisher panel, so nobody can accidentally put the system on.
I did some research back then on single din radios with rear camera function, that fitted in the cramped interior. With some fear (Chinese quality ?) but since so cheap, why not ?
I really loved it !
Great stereo, Waze, Spotify, Apple Car play, OBD2 connection,…
You name it, it’s all there, works fine, has no ugly logo’s and fits perfectly !
I was tempted (for a small moment) to switch colors… the GULF blue looks amazing !
But since I wanted the original look, we had to go for British Racing Green.
We ordered the paint, by the paint-code on the immatriculation number and it was red
What’s next ?
They need to install the wiper fluid bottle get a license plate and finally start driving.
I’m on the look out for a new front and rear wheel (Exige cup 260) since there were two broken, or I’ll buy the great looking MAK XLR wheels.
These are developed by MAK and PB racing, I adore the gold ones https://www.elisecuppbr.net/
and the original handbook and maintenance book).
, checked it again by VIN number and it was definitely BRG.
suddenly it’s a car ! And a very nice one 
