July 10, 2011 – The bidding tapped out at $3,550.
Buy it Now is $7,500 but the bidding starts at $2,500 out of Houston, Texas.
“Due to growing family needs and changing priorities I need to sell my beloved Lotus Europa S1A. This Europa is the original body style which has an integral steel backbone chassis and monocoque fiberglass body. The clean lines of the body curve below the door and smooth belly pan result in superior beauty and aerodymanic performance to any other Europa. It also has added lightness and higher torsional stiffness relative to the later model bolt-on chassis style. The S1A is very rare with approximately 80 individual vehicles listed in the online historical register. It has removable plexiglass windows that clip on and store inside the doors, which distinguishes it from the S1, and the Lancia three color tail lights that distinguish it from the S1B. The dash has the configuration of the Lotus Type 47 race car with a center panel, driver’s panel, and glove box.
I purchased the Europa from a friend of the family in 1992 and performed a frame-off restoration by removal of the chassis through the bottom. The chasis was restored by removal of the lower portion of the front T-section and replacement by a professional body shop with 1/16″ thick carbon steel sheet, Wishbone mounting locations were undisturbed during the process except for the left one that was displaced by corrosion and it was precision aligned to original specifications. The body was replaced and repairs made with Kevlar 49 fabric (anywhere it contacted steel) and T300 carbon fabric with extra reiforcement provided in critical areas such as the body mounting bobbins in the rear wheel wells and all around the front wheel wells to ensure improved stiffness over the original configuration.
The car was driven daily for several years after this first restoration, and then the motor was removed for rebuild and never completed, the car sat garaged for 10 years and then moved to Houston, TX where is sat outside under a cover for 2 years and then indoor storage for another year until another restoration was performed. All new brakes, trunions, ball joints, front bearings, an R16 engine with 35,000 original miles, clutch, pressure plate, throwout bearing, transaxle output seals, rebuilt Weber DCOE 13, and custom Bosch 018 mechanical advance distributor. The car is being driven weekly and a collection of new parts has been generated to complete the resoration, including engine seals, transaxle input shaft seal, lower link bushings, radius arm mounts, and transaxle mount. The chassis is solid with no structural rust and has increased strength over the original thin sheet steel. A used parking brake cable is included, the installed cable is frozen solid. The shifter was modified by a previous owner to use a VW style pivot at the front and maintains the original S1 rod linkage everywhere else, it does shift acceptably into all gears and could be improved with a new shift rod shaft bushing at the transaxle end.
Runs and drives great! Driven weekly, could be daily driver, restore to former glory, SCCA, or vintage race. Reserve in NADA range, have fun bidding.”
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