Restoration Work

This page contains information about the restoration - mostly cosmetic, as the car was mechanically excellent when I bought it - of Europa S/N 65/2862. I've included a few photos for now. As time permits, I'll scan some more of my photos, and I'll try to share some of my experiences regarding what procedures and products work. best, least, and not at all. If you're contemplating the restoration of a Europa, maybe some of this will be useful.

This photo and the one below were taken in 1987, shortly after I acquired the car. It's a Federal car, S/N 65/2862. It came with the ridiculously high front springs Lotus put on those cars, as well as 13 x 6 Cosmic rims (no original 13 x 4.5s), a block from an R16 (Type 821-02), the correct Lotus distributor, but with the Renault camshaft and 8.6:1 flat top pistons. The engine ran and sounded great, and the interior was in reasonably good condition. From this distance, the exterior didn't look too bad. Unfortunately, the paint job made Earl Scheib look good: there was overspray all over the windshield and backlight gaskets, and there was some rippling in the left rear quarter ("sail") that was clearly not made by Lotus when they built the car. The PO from whom I bought the car - an Air Force C130 pilot - had fitted raised-letter tires, a luggage rack, and a 200 watt stereo, but he apparently hadn't figured out that 5/8" front toe in and a worn-out transmission mount would have an undesirable effect on handling. It took less than $200 in parts and a few hours of work to set the suspension right. I suspect that if the PO could have driven the car after I got it right, he would have kicked himself for selling it.

Front View.

I kept the car as shown above until 1989, during which time I drove it approximately 4,000 miles. During that time, the car needed very little work. I flushed the cooling system as a precautionary measure, replaced the brake master cylinder with an ATE unit made for a 1973 VW Super Beetle, cleaned out the carburetor, replaced an upper ball joint, installed a radiator fan and shroud from a VW Rabbit, and performed some other minor repairs.

In 1989 I began removing paint to see what was underneath. From that time until 1994, I didn't drive the car much, but it was never fully disabled. I believe that's one of the keys to keeping your motivation up: drive the car every so often to remind yourself why you bought it. In my view, Lotuses in general are much better driver's than collector's cars.

Over the winter of 99-2000, I made a concerted push to complete the painting of the car. I wanted it to look good enough to be photographable at competition events, and I wanted all the coatings I applied to be able to remain on the car indefinitely.

Front view before removing trim. I had feathered in the new flares (courtesy Briggs Pletcher) and redone the suspension over the off season. The primer that's present in this photo had been on the car for just under a year.

Same view, but with trim and orifice covers removed.

Masked and primed.

The primer is Dura-Tec polyester primer/surfacer, made by Hawkeye Industries (http://duratec1.com). It's the best I've found: it sprays easily, builds quickly, is fully air cured, develops no pinholes, is very low porosity - lower than gelcoat - and can be sanded/buffed to any degree of finish, including high gloss.

Here's the car at its first event after the respray.

Here are some additional views of the car at its first few outings.