1968 Lotus Europa Restomod

In reply to Woody:

Yup, I built the chassis and all the suspension pieces. Way too much work, but I enjoy it.

Cool project. Well documented.

Did you find a home for the 2nd shell?

In reply to OHSCrifle:

I sold it to a local car guy who seems to buy all the stuff I have for sale. I gave him a buckler mk 15 project a few years ago, which should have been enough to deter him from another project but no, he took the spare body.

RoddyMac17 wrote: In reply to OHSCrifle: I sold it to a local car guy who seems to buy all the stuff I have for sale. I gave him a buckler mk 15 project a few years ago, which should have been enough to deter him from another project but no, he took the spare body.

You cant just toss out the words "gave him a Buckler Mk 15 without a picture of said mk 15

I guess I should update this thread just to prove it hasn't died.... The past two month have seen the body sprayed in its final coat of high build:
The engine bay painted: The rad ducting started:

And final sanding (no pic). This upcoming weekend the body will finally be in paint. My helper instructed me to paint the car the same shade of blue as the Lotus Eleven I built. She said it was "my" colour and all my cars should be painted that shade of blue.

Once the car is painted, it's getting sent back to the "other garage" and hopefully over the winter it will finally run. Fingers crossed.

And, just for fun, here's how low it currently is:

The current rear springs are a bit (way) too soft, so the back end will come up about 2 1/2 to 3 inches. The front is about right, though I might look into bringing it up 1/2".

Rod

Seeing it in front of the Fiat really puts it into perspective of how low these are. Even if the rear was raised a couple inches with new springs, the whole thing still looks like it will sit below the window sill of the Fiat. Glad to see you are still plugging away on it.

In reply to T.J.:

It's really a "tuck & roll" event to try and exit one.

oh E36 M3, I thought the fiat was a evo viii at first... (yeah i was not paying it much attention and just saw red with black wheels.)

makes the europe even smaller.

I managed to make my goal of paint this weekend. Saturday morning the car was looking like this:

And by the end of the day:

Today saw the body reunited with the chassis:

Unfortunately the car will need to be sprayed. The paint is a bit thin in spots, so even though it looks good in pictures, in person it's not the greatest. I'm honestly not too upset, the plan is to fit everything except the glass, get it running, then in the spring respray it. I am happy to see it in paint, and I'm really pleased with my helpers suggestion on painting it the same blue as my old Eleven. The blue, I think, really suits the Europa.

Rod

I ~so~ wish you had a fleet of Loti - the 7, the 11, and the Europa - all Dark Rod Blue.

I wish I had the space and $$$ to afford to keep them all. But, I still have enough bits to build either another 7 or another 11 save for a motor, along with a stack of blueprints, then again I haven't built a 23 yet..... or a 17......

Beautiful color perfect for that car.

I like the stepping stone look in your driveway. Caravan - mgb - Europa. Each smaller one has its roof line about at the windowsills of the last one.

Very nice. You seem to have gotten the body nice and flat based on the reflections. For those following at home, care to expound on what of some of the painting challenges were?

Oh my, that is gorgeous. Tan or black interior?

NOHOME said: care to expound on what of some of the painting challenges were?

The biggest issue I had was temperature. I picked up Omni's low VOC paint, as it's one of the few solvent borne paints available here in town, but I had never sprayed it before. After looking over the data sheet, it has a much longer set up time compared to the older paints. This meant that it took longer between coats, and if I put a bit too much on, it would run or sag. If I were to do it again, and I am, I'd wait for warmer temps or book some time in a paint booth (if I could find one).

As for the bodywork, it's flat enough. As soon as I had it outside I could pick out a few spots that were a bit wavy. But, that just me, always looking for imperfections. I probably should have gone with slick sand for the initial "very high build" coat, but instead went with three high build primer coats with guide coats on the last two. This help considerably with smoothing the body.

JoeTR6, The interior will be black, and reasonably stock. I'm tempted to use leather for the seats, but that's only if I can find a hide cheap enough.

Rod

Reply to RoddyMac17:

I like the slicksand or feather-fill products. Can's see doing another paint job without!

By "Low VOC" do you mean water based paint? Thought that was only for two stage?

Good news is that if you re-shoot, you get a second kick at the details. I screwed up the first coat of paint on the bugeye and I was almost glad I did because I took the opportunity to fix a few spots that would have buged me!

In reply to NOHOME:

Omni released a low VOC solvent borne paint, and it's available in single stage, or base/clear. The bonus is it's available in Canada, no more need to journey south to get paint. I had dreaded having to switch to water based, even though a few painters I had talked to had no issues with it.

As for the respray, I'll look at the little bits that I messed up on and assess whether or not they really warrant getting fixed (meaning I'll have my helper and others view the car and ask them to point out anything that isn't right).

Wow, nice work! That's a great color.

Outstanding

Your helper has great taste.

That color is fantastic - that it was done completely GRM is even better.

A small update, I haven't done too much on the car over the past three months. The Christmas break was earmarked for getting some mechanical work done, but the weather didn't cooperate. We had an unusually large amount of snow (for Vancouver), which meant I couldn't get into either garages. But, in the past few weeks I have sorted out a few things. First off, I think I have figured out a clutch/flywheel that will work with off the shelf parts. I picked up a Renault Fuego Turbo clutch disc and an Escort ZX2 flywheel. I'm using a Zetec out of a Focus, but the Focus uses a much bigger clutch, so the Renault disc wouldn't work with the stock flywheel. I had talked to a local clutch rebuilder/guru who told me that he couldn't put the french disc center into the Focus one. So, doing some searching I figured out the ZX2 used a smaller clutch that might just work. Fingers crossed it will bolt up without any issue.

Next up, I've now build two seat frames. I didn't get any interior pieces with the car, but luckily there is a 3d file of the seat frame available on one of the Europa sites. the two frames are 90% done, I ran out of argon yesterday so couldn't completely finish them.

But, they're in decent enough shape that I can now start on seat cover patterns. The GF pulled her sewing machine out of storage and I've done some test pieces, so I might have some "new" seats by this time next month.

Rod

Are those frames steel or aluminum? They look great either way. Awesome progress keep up the good work. I still want to do one of these someday.

The original are steel, but I've gone with .063" aluminium. A little bit lighter, and as I had some aluminium left over from building the gas tanks, a little bit cheaper.

Love the seats.