My Lotus Elise S1 had some significant chassis damage, normally this would mean crushing the car or buying a whole new chassis. But for the first time a Lotus Elise chassis has been fixed publicly. With the use of glue!!
Frankenlise full episodes: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-JmG4958QS9df4fvjAl5S8mOwQ_WObz3
Huge thanks to Phil and Ash!
Automotive Sporting Heritage: https://www.asheritage.com/
SELOC LOTUS FORUMS: https://www.seloc.org/
Very very brave !
Great you finally got it sorted. Surely another nice sounding exhaust for this one at some point no?
nice job looks mint
My dream car is an1989 328. I would be just happy renting one for the day and driving it upstate
Enjoy your cool lotus
Nice piece of work. Shame they made it so difficult to repair. But then it's the other hand of being that light/strong.
The glue of life…
humanity would crumble without glue
Very well done, I really couldn’t see this making it back. Hopefully there’s no flex! Good luck
When duck tape and cable ties stop working.
My mirror was duck taped on for 4 year's before i got around to glueing it. It used to fall off every time it rained or the sun shone too much.
Great news Jack and bravo for this brave fixing ! I seriously consider the sale of my 308 for an elise S1. It would be delightfull to watch a video of the comparaison between the original and continuation 😉 (if you see what i mean)
Great result, not taking anything away from lotus or the guys who saved the chassis (and I realise the work and skill involved) but it didn't seem to be an out of the ordinary job to me. Lotus's solution was to scrap it? Other manufacturers, ie Audi, jaguar, Aston Martin to name a few have used bonded aluminum and chassis for a couple of decades now, I can't see how this created such a problem. I realise lotus would want to supply a new chassis because they don't do repair sections but a fix as per the video should be common place, that's what good engineers do, fix things!
Great to see you save it mate!
Well done. These cars need to be kept on the road. There will never be anything like them again. S2 owner.
Good job and a great video!
Don't park it where you parked the 205.
I’ve got a series 1 , the chassis isn’t repairable, the strength is gone, I wouldn’t be happy driving it!
I would have let them that things ugly.
just hope it doesnt burn oil !!!! great to see a positive outcome !!!!
Aralidte 2014 and 2015 are room temperature curing structural adhesives that are perfect for this purpose. Ive used 2015 to repair the wishbone pickups on Elise chassis's for years with great results
I had one of these as a daily driver for about five years. Not good in the wet. Great cars though.
Well done. Having a 111S long-termer, a lovely drive. But any Lotus (I've experience of several) needs millimeter or better geometry to deliver that liquid handling: does the Frankelise? Hope so! 😉
It’s a pity Lotus couldn’t have given it a once over to endorse the repair. A well thought through solution to previous owners bodges.