Rarely seen 1990s sports car from iconic British brand can be bought for shockingly low price
A GORGEOUS sports car from an iconic British brand can be all yours for a tantalisingly low price.
The two-seater convertible is an icon of the early 1990s and is still very much a head-turner.
The stunning Lotus Elan, loved by petrolheads for its fun-factor, is widely considered a rival to the Mazda MX-5.
This version of the Elan was a revival of the Elan nameplate after 14 years away but compared to its Japanese-made rival, the new Elan wasn’t a huge seller and was expensive to make.
In fact, sales figures were too low for the carmaker to recoup its huge development costs.
Just 3,855 Elans were built between November 1989 and July 1992, while only over 1,000 remain on roads today according to How Rare Is My Car.
However, we were able to find one available to buy from CarGurus for just £4,000.
The 1999 example, with 85,000 miles on the clock, features a 1.6-litre engine supplied by Isuzu that’s capable of 162bhp.
Described by the listing as an “appreciating classic”, this version of the Elan had a 0-62mph time of under seven seconds.
Curiously, when Lotus stopped building the Elan in 1996, the tooling for the car was sold to Korean brand Kia – built for local Asian markets.
This comes as Lotus recently revealed a sneak peek of their upcoming sports car model – set to be fully unveiled next week.
Known only as Theory 1, this bizarre nameplate would end some 65 years of Lotus tradition should it remain.
That’s because, with the exception of the track-focused 2-Eleven and 3-Eleven, Lotus have named all of their road cars words beginning with the letter ‘E’ – ever since the Elite was released in 1958.
So far, the only image we’ve seen of this motor is of its aggressive-looking rear spoiler.