1991 Lotus Elan SE Turbo (M100)

Background.

After a production gap of some 14 years, Lotus took the decision to reintroduce the much-loved Elan name with its new two-seater convertible sports car. The M100 Elan aimed to dispel the old clichés of unreliability by installing a trusted Japanese engine and manual transmission supplied by Isuzu, and built with the development and testing resources of General Motors. Its design—penned by Peter Stevens—featuring a fibreglass composite body over a rigid steel backbone chassis, was true to Lotus founder Colin Chapman's original philosophy of achieving performance through low weight. In late 1986, Peter Stevens's design for the Type M100 was approved and work began by Lotus engineers to turn the clay styling buck into a car that could be built. This process was completed in just under three years, a remarkably short time from design to production car. A total of 3,855 Elans were built between 1989 and 1992, most buyers favouring the SE model, which was powered by a turbocharged 1588cc Isuzu 4XE1-MT Inline-4 producing 162bhp fed through the front wheels and offering 0-60 in 6.5 seconds and 137mph. Hailed by Car magazine as one of the fastest 'A to B' cars of its generation, the Elan M100 is becoming increasingly collectable.

The Car

With M100s being so few and far between, we doubt whether any can match the provenance of this 1991 Turbo SE. The service book names the first owner as Lotus Cars Ltd., effective from January 10th, 1991, and the build sheet names (Monaco) White as the original colour. A 2002 letter from Lotus Cars provides more specific details, revealing the first owner was Johnny Herbert, “c/o Lotus Formula 1”. Johnny was one of Britain’s leading Formula One drivers from 1989 to 2000, and winner of the 1991 Le Mans 24 Hours. Charismatic and super talented, although frequently in the wrong car at the wrong time, his Grand Prix career encompassed driving for Benetton, Tyrrell, Lotus, Ligier, Sauber, Stewart, and Jaguar with three wins including an emotional British Grand Prix win at Silverstone in 1995. His career with Lotus F1 lasted from 1990 to 1994 and the Elan was presumably his 'company car' which he retained until 1993 with the service history showing that he had covered around 40,000 miles at that time.

After Jonny, the Elan was enjoyed by three further keepers before being purchased, in 2002, by its fifth owner who kept the little Lotus for 20 years prior to it being acquired as a dismantled project in 2022 by our vendor, a retired motor engineer. He undertook a full body-off restoration to a very high standard with the bodywork preparation and respray in its original Monaco White alone costing £6,000. It was fully restored mechanically with many parts renewed including a service-exchange power-steering rack, brake discs and pads, gear-change cables, shock absorbers, Panhard rods and a stainless-steel exhaust. The original interior survives in fine order and the quality of the restoration is evident from our images. The service history is well-documented, with seven stamps up to 2002 and an eighth from 2022, the first four being carried out by Lotus Cars. The history file contains much information, invoices etc. covering the restoration, the owner’s wallet with manual and service book, V5C, and MOTs etc. The indicated mileage when we photographed the car was 80,185, with less than 500 of these since the restoration was completed.

With over 160bhp and legendary Lotus handling, the second-generation Elan is a true performance bargain and this carefully restored example with Formula One provenance, must surely be one of the best available.

.