The Lotus Grand Tourers

Calypso Red with gold tan leather interior.
Asking price: £5,550. (but make us an offer).
Location: Chippenham, Wiltshire.

Photos at: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjHp4Zd4

We bought the car in 1999 from a friend who had owned it since 1996.

(Edited: from discussions it appears that this serial number 3106 is a Calypso Red Celebration Limited Edition).

I have always been told it's a Celebration, but we don't have the original documentation or a letter from Lotus stating it for a fact. It has the Clarion CDC head unit, which is probably a good indicator. But I am not trying to pass the car off as something it is not - if someone more knowlegeable on here tells me it is not a Celebration then fair enough!

We are selling because we rarely use it nowadays (the children who used to fit neatly in the +2 seats are now adult) and sadly we now need the garage space for storage far more than we need a Lotus.

We have service history (all invoices and MOTs) from 1996 onwards from Haydon Daytune and Lotus specialists GST Performance.

It has an MOT until end January 2014 and is taxed until end December 2013.

The car has 100,895 miles on the clock, but has done only 20,000 miles since a full engine rebuild in 2001. The engine was completely rebuilt with loving care by Gerald Turner of GST Performance in 2001 at a cost of £5,500. Full invoice available. The engine runs very sweetly.

It's been garaged and hardly used for the past 2.5 years except to go for MOT/service. We do start it once a month to turn over the engine.

The engine, electrics, gearbox, brakes etc are all in very good condition as far as I can tell. However, the exterior paint needs refurbishment (the protective sealant is peeling off in places, especially the roof and rear bumper). Also the interior headlining needs replacing, as does the interior carpeting which suffered from water leakage damage several years ago when it had to be exiled from the garage for 18 months - some of the carpeting has already been removed and we simply have mats (Lotus ones though!) in the front footwells.

Other details:
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It has 4 Toyo correct-size tyres all with nearly full tread: 2 with only 850 miles on them. New battery 18 months ago (kept on trickle charger).

Original Lotus OZ alloys.

Central locking, electric windows, AC (needs recharging).

Clarion CDC 9300 head unit (not sure if this or indeed the radio works or not).


I'll be happy to answer any questions about it to the best of my ability on this forum, or email me at lizlynchpl@me.com.

Hi,
It does appear to have the Celebration interior, but then several late Excels did. Celebrations usually had colour coded wheels and an Excel badge on the rear to the right of the Lotus Badge. The CDC 9300 Disk Changer was standard on Celebrations but I see from the pictures that there is a Sony Radio rather than the Clarion CRX91R which was standard, so I suspect that the CD unit will not work as I don't think the Sony radio would support the C-Bus connection to the CD unit.
Sorry, this is sounding a bit of and anorak response, but I do not mean to appear critical.
It looks very nice and if Gerald Turner worked on it it should be in good fettle.
Good luck with the sale.

Hi Alan, thanks for the feedback.

So the car is probably a SE with Celebration items but not actually a 'Celebration'.

I'm sure you're right and that the CD Changer does not actually work, although it is present in the boot and wired in. I imagine that a previous owner decided to replace it's controller with a 'more modern' mindisc player

alanmoss wrote:Hi,
It does appear to have the Celebration interior, but then several late Excels did. Celebrations usually had colour coded wheels and an Excel badge on the rear to the right of the Lotus Badge. The CDC 9300 Disk Changer was standard on Celebrations but I see from the pictures that there is a Sony Radio rather than the Clarion CRX91R which was standard, so I suspect that the CD unit will not work as I don't think the Sony radio would support the C-Bus connection to the CD unit.
Sorry, this is sounding a bit of and anorak response, but I do not mean to appear critical.
It looks very nice and if Gerald Turner worked on it it should be in good fettle.
Good luck with the sale.

For the red ones, even the factory do not know what colour the wheels were, it seems the records became a little less clear than normal.

Hello Chaps,
Here is some feedback from Andy Graham in the Lotus Cars archive department with regard to the Red Celebrations, I hope it helps with people trying to identify if their car is a Celebration:

"The Excel Hethel Anniversary model celebrates 25 years at the Hethel factory site and was known as the Hethel Celebration Excel. The first Celebration serial number was serial number 3066 running through to last serial number 3101 (excluding 3082 as that was a standard SE model) and then from serial numbers 3102 to 3106 were the 5 Calypso Red Limited Edition cars."

In discussions with Andy, it sounds as if they tried out red wheels on the first one and thought better of it! There is also some debate over which ones had the colour coded steering wheels as one or two of them were sold with black steering wheels (how geeky is this! )

Jim

Jim, thanks for that very useful information.

Checking the VIN shows my Excel is serial number 3106 - so it is the very last Celebration ever to roll off the production line.

elynch wrote:Checking the VIN shows my Excel is serial number 3106 - so it is the very last Celebration ever to roll off the production line.

That makes it a bit special then.

Great story, i enjoy the reading of this topic!!!
have good luck with the selling of this nice excel!

my mate also calls me about this car, that say's enough (yess i am from the Netherlands..)

Thanks bauke, no-one has shown interest yet but the car has only been advertised for 4 days