Inherited Car Dilemma?

Give it a bloody good clean. Clean cars look so much more viable a prospect than dirty ones.

Cheers all, @BlueQuinn yeah real ground breaking design and only about 800 or less left in the world. @Dale true if you going to do it do it right, thats what I fear not being able to do it it right. P!mp that story is what I fear. And Ved the car is in garage that costs nowt.

Been in touch with Club Lotus UK and American guy who runs Elite club and both are up for help and advice, good guys-just concerned with the step up of foruming on engines and four wheels!?

If you've got free storage then you can basically work on the car yourself with no time pressure.
As I say, first stage is to get it running, then to get it roadworthy. Then use it. I really wouldn't be thinking about restoring it unless you have a huge amount of cash and a trusted garage. It's only original once, after all.
Just think about small jobs rather than the big car, and it stops being an impossible task.

if it was my car i wouldn't get it up and running but get the body off and have a rolling chassis to work on and leave the body/interior to last.
i presume it's like the elan and has a simple chassis not a spaceframe?
i guess the climax is going to more expensive than the ford based engines of the later cars but if you do most of the work yourself it will keep the cost down.

bump, what became of the beauty?

sorry if this dredge offends.

I'd love to know what happened as well.

My uncle restored a couple of MG roadsters with my grandfather when I was about 2 or 3. Sold one, kept one. The one he kept is now 20 years past it's restoration and still running - now he's planning to go back and spruce it up all over again.

That car is probably my uncle's most prized possession. It, like your lotus, has a strong connection to my grandfather who passed away last year. Yes it's an inanimate object, but these things have real sentimental worth and I think it's worth the pain to give those memories some life.

if it was my car i wouldn't get it up and running but get the body off and have a rolling chassis to work on and leave the body/interior to last.
i presume it's like the elan and has a simple chassis not a spaceframe?

I know this was ages ago, but Elites don't have a chassis. Glassfibre monocoque.

Damn, BQ, you need a time machine to have this internetz argument.