New Member Saying Hi! - Sport160

[dinglem]

Well I have just signed up, having recently joined another Lotus forum too. I'm trying to get my Lotus mojo back as the car has been sat at the back of the garage for around 18months now as the wife and I have recently become new parents. I am desperately hoping she has forgotten the car is there, being a 2-seater and all.

 

It's a 2000 Elise Sport160 in metallic black, with the red alacantra seat option. I always thought this was the best colour combo for the Sport160 

 

It is one of the original full-spec 50 SVA cars, being number 9 so came with all of the bells and whistles associated with those first 50 cars. I have had it from new, and collected it from Nick Whale in Brum having traded in my standard Azure S1 for it (S747 COJ).

 

So yeah, I've had it for 16 years now. Amazing when I look at it like that - it's a long time. I've taken it all over Europe, used it as a daily, and have thoroughly enjoyed every minute. It's done around 40K miles. The engine bay is totally as it left the factory, and the only things I have changed (apart from the rear tyres!) is the steering wheel for a removable one, and an extended rear diffuser.

 

It now needs a bit of a refresh, and I am hoping to do that under the radar so I can get it out in the sun next year. The roof is a little tired, the headlight covers need cleaning out and I managed to have a rabbit head butt one of the driving lights at motorway speeds to that also needs replacing...  I'm looking forward to reading through some of the posts on here and picking up a few hints and tips along the way.

 

Some pics...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are there any other of the 50 SVA cars on here???

 

[Meister]

Hello and welcome to MLOC!

[Phil S1]

Hi and welcome to MLOC, do you know Brian who used to post on here quite frequently as Elise+Imp, until parenthood took over his life too? (He has a yellow S1 currently SORN'd and lovely blue IMP - reg BHP).

[dinglem]

I do yes, although I haven't seen or heard of him for a while now. He is quite the engineer and has made some amazing changes to his Imp. He knows my Imps pretty well.

[James Boret]

Hello from me.

Have metallic black sport 160 but WVTA and blue interior.

 

[dinglem]

Thanks for the welcomes.

 

In all the years of owning mine I have never seen another Sport160 on the road.

[James Boret]

Blame me, 1800 miles in the last 3 years  

[Daveb99]

Welcome to MLOC - from another black Sport 160 owner!     Wow, a 1-owner SVA unmodified S160 - what a rare thing that is, fantastic...

 

Mine is a WVTA - I've had it almost 3 years, after a standard S1 and S1 111S (both 15 years ago now).

 

You're only 30 minutes from me, would be great to meet up sometime, though mine is currently SORNed and I can't drive for a while due to a broken wrist anyway 

 

Couple of pics of mine too.

 

 

[dinglem]

Wow... three black Sport 160's in a matter of hours! Nice....

 

That second shot of yours looks amazing. I will really have to try to get some better pictures of mine next time it escapes the garage.

 

I was lucky that I kind of stumbled across my car almost by accident; I was visiting Nick Whale to collect a roof part for my original S1 that I had broken, and that very morning they had taken delivery of a single Sort160. I hadn't even heard of the model at that time, but I traded up there and then and got this car as a bit of a bargain. The S1 was still dealing at a bit of a premium at that time so it was not too far off a straight trade. I was very lucky. I gathered it was going to be a bit of a special model so I have hung on to it, not really messed it about and it has never been on the track either.

 

To be honest I am trying to get my car up and running again after a bit of a slumber, and we are in the throws of restoring a house over in France. My aim is to get it sorted and then deposit it over there for a while to use for a bit of fun in the sunshine, although with a new baby it won't be that simple. With that in mind I have been reading about switching to an aluminium rad and renewing the expansion bottle etc.... just to be sure it is up to the heat. There are loads of little niggling jobs that I have been putting off for years now, so I am steadily addressing them one by one. As stupid as it sounds my main issue that keeps me off the road is that I continually lose front number plates so I am desperately looking for a solution to that. The two plate mounts have long since been ripped off, so I have resorted to velco directly on to the body and as a last resort I am now considering a slightly reduced plate size. I've lost count of the amount of times I have got home either to find that the plate has gone, or to find it sat in the gutter outside of my house having fallen off as I pulled off the drive!

 

Meet-up sounds good, although i'm probably not around until December at the earliest. I saw you did your wrist biking over the Chase - read it on another thread - I did the London to Brighton charity ride last month...... on an 80's BMX!

[DeanB]

Welcome to mloc dinglem. Great car!

 

You have to tell us what the BMX was though :-)

[Daveb99]

Ultra Burner??

[dinglem]

Oh Lordie... this could take a while.

 

I have several. Yes, a MkI Ultra Burner is in my collection, and a MkII SuperTUFF Burner. My big thing is Birmingham WHEELS bikes though - very rare (even back in the 80's) but I used to race there as a kid and always wanted one, so when I had finished the Burners I started hunting for one, and it all got a bit silly after that.

 

I think I must have about 7 of those now, including a one-off Ti prototype, plus a load of others, some freestyle, some race.

 

I built an extra- long Brum WHEELS for the Brighton ride with some specific parts suitable for the distance (i.e. skinny road tyres, a water bottle and a seat with a bit of padding on it!)

 

I'll go grab some pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...and this was the L2B special build:-

 

[dinglem]

And to bring us back on Lotus topic....

 

 

 

[DeanB]

Those are some rare groove bikes!

I can just about remember the Birmingham Wheels bikes. Was there a Wheels race team? And was their star man a black guy (which was unusual in BMX back then)? Or is my memory playing tricks on me?

[dinglem]

Big Trevor Robinson.

 

 

 

The team won several World Championship classes and toured all over the place. Quite a turn-around, seeing as the whole thing was originally set up by Brum Council to keep the inner-city kids off the streets.