A fellow member in a German Lotus forum likes to sell his Exige S1:
Exige S1, 2001, 28.000 km / 17.000 mls, original LHD, mustard yellow, VHPD, motorsport seats and AC, 2 owners, looks like a very original car and has been part of a Swiss Lotus collection, even the resonator valve is still there, comes with ‘Certificate of Provenance’
The price is 50.000 CHF (ca. 40.000 GBP). The car is located in Switzerland and thus needs to be taxed when imported into EU countries.
I offered him to place this information on exiges.com on behalf of him. Neither do I know the car nor do I know the vendor in person so please act with typical precaution when dealing over the internet
Just contact me via PM and I’ll give you his email address.
I did some research on this topic too and it looks like that only the VAT has to be paid. No customs duty are charged for cars that have been manufactured within the EU.
Don’t convert such a car as it is perfect like it is. I’m currently driving a RHD Elise here in Germany and my Exige is RHD too. It would have been an easy task to convert
it to LHD during the restoration but I like to keep it original. For me the RHD restrictions are minimal. But others don’t like it at all and the RHD cars are always the cheaper ones over here.
Driving a LHD Exige in Great Britain must be truly exotic
Not a bad idea, Kevin. But unfortunately my restoration project has not finished yet.
Just buy this car now and we talk again about Exige-swapping once my project is done
As others have said, why convert it, having the steering wheel on the wrong side is hardly an inconvience with an S1 Exige… you should try getting a 6ft 4inch teenage son out of the driving seat…that’s inconvenient, if hilarious.
The car is no longer for sale as the seller decided to trade it in at a Swiss Lotus dealer. So it will be up for sale soon again on a dealer site.
To my surprise I had not a single enquiry to contact the seller since I posted the ad here.
At the moment there seems to be a big delta between the asking prices and what potential buyers are willing to pay. And I still think that the car offered here is the kind of car you should buy and the price tag was about right.
I agree that LHD is normally an advantage with any Lotus. But with the Exige S1 there seems to be currently more demand in GB than on the continent so it might have helped if it has been a RHD car.
My idea of the current ‘priced-to-sell’ range would be 30k to 45k GBP for a RHD in Great Britain and maybe 35k to 50k € for a LHD one in the continental EU.
But with nearly no cars actually sold it is hard to tell.
