1967 Lotus Other

Super Safety Convertible

1.6 liter

Manual

45/7594

Clear

Gasoline

I have owned this car for the past 15+ years. And whom ever said the Lotus cars are unreliable never owned this car. But then again, I have only put less than 3000 miles on this car in those 15 years. I bought the car from a Lotus dealership here in the Los Angeles area. It was the dealer owner's personal car. He spent and outragous amount of money restoring this car. But he also had an outragous amount of money too. When I bought the car, it was perfect in every way. It was a nut and bolt restoration. There is no rust anywhere on this car. The bottom looks as good as the top. It is the most desirable year and model - The SE SS. The Special Equipment model has the higher tuned engine. And I believe this one has been tuned even further. I have no specs but the way it pulls from 70 mph to 100, it has to have some special tweaks going on in there. It just plain blows the doors off its 1960's competitors and would embarrass a lot of modern day machines as well. The SS stands for Super Safety. They only made just a handful of these cars in late 1967. It has the real knock off wheels and the spinner wheels nuts with the ears turned inward. It has the rocker switches on the dash like the later cars (and is better looking than the early cars). It has the early car body style before DOT kicked in in 1968. And it has the weber cylinder head. The skinny tires don't have a lot of grip by modern standard, but with that said, no other car EVER handles like an Elan. I truly believe that is would be impossible to crash this car unless you are a complete idiot. It communicates everything thru the seat of your pants and your feet and hands simply do exactly what you want the car to do. You can drive this car like a pro the first time you set foot in it. Use those SUV's as apex markers and you will be a red blur as you disappear in to the distance. After just typing that, I really don't want to sell it, but I need to. I am traveling for the next 2 years and I have nowhere to store it. All the lights and gauges work as they should. The heater and blower works. The windows go up and down with a push of a button. The interior is excellent. The dash is beautiful and perfect. The paint is very very nice but it has some of the famous Lotus stress cracks in it now. The top is like new (but I just put a one inch size hole in it when I put it up today to take pictures...............I am sooooo mad at myself) The engine was rebuilt and is powerful. I put a Permatune CDI ignition on it so it starts up quickly. It has the weber carbs on it. The previous owner moved the radiator more to the front of the car to improve airflow thru the radiator. It also has 2 thremostatically controled fans that kick in automatically. Even on the hottest days, it never goes above 180. This is a car you can drive and not worry about. It has Koni shocks in the front and Spax adjustable in the rear. I put the Spax on because the Koni's were too stiff. I think the only two issues the car has is there is a small oil leak at the back of the engine. A drop or two of oil drops on to the clutch plate and it is kind of jerky when taking off in first gear until that oil burns off and then its fine after that. The other is the carbs might need to be cleaned a bit and tuned after sitting. There is a hesatation off idle. But once past 3000 RPM's the engine runs sweetly. It has always done this since I bought the car. It might be the engine tunning doesn't match the stock carbs and jetting. But again, it idles nice and above 3000 RPM's it carburates well The car always starts right up, even after sitting for months. It shows only 5000 or so miles on the odometer. I think that is how many miles it has traveled sinced being restored just prior to my ownership. Here's your chance to buy a Elan SE SS that has gone thru a nut and bolt restoration (5000 miles snd 20 years ago). These don't come up for sale very often. Good luck Call me if you have any questions regarding the car Ed 714 469 5517