1973 s3?

[efaul]

So I'm finally looking for a car again and had a tip from a friend about a 1973 S3 with 1200 miles. The seller seemed to be nice enough on the phone and admittedly did not know a thing about these cars. He did tell me that it had a 2.0 toyota engine (unusual but possible is suppose) and a 5 speed. The car was the center of some sort of legal dispute between himself and a business partner and he had no idea of the history of the car.

The wife's out of town and it's only 3 hours away, what the heck i'll go give it a look. I was excited, and when initially seeing the car it gave me a big smile as these cars do. The seller showed me title with 1973 lotus convertable. He started it up, it sounded great. Wow I thought, could this be it? Then I started to notice a few things. The rear tail lights were a squared off oval. Then there was no seam between the rear fenders and the body panels. Wait a second...all of the body was fiberglass. Like an S4 but in a S3 shape, and the fabricator didn't bother to work it arround the front suspension, it was squared off. I asked him if there was vin number plate and he didn't know where to look, and this being the first "original" S3 i have seen I didn't know where. Needless to say we didn't find anything.

I did take it for a spin and lets just say it was unpleasant... and a bit scarry in city traffic.

I decided that this car was not the one for me but I couldn't help but to feel sorry for the seller. He feels that he has a genuine seven that should be worth 20k. I know these are the potato heads of cars and but all these different things weren't adding up to me. I told the seller that I would post this to see if anyone could help with the location of the chassis number and if there was anything else to help identify the car.

And now that I think of it when did lotus stop production of the S3 and start the S4? And when did Caterham start the S3? Were early Caterhams fiberglass?

 

Many thanks to the wise old forum from the humble green newbee,

Eric

[SkinnyG]

Any pictures? They would help.

[rzempel]

Rear fenders integrated into body and fiberglass body sound like a Westfield. I know some of them have been built with Toyota powerplants, also. What the title says is generally unreliable.

 

1973 would be an S4, and all fiberglass, looking nothing like an S3.

 

If it's an original Lotus S3, missing the chassis number plate, there should be a “frame” number stamped on the chassis tube located just in front of the passenger seat. The number would start with “U” if the chassis was built by Universal Radiator and a “P” if built by Progressive. On later cars the number was located above the pedal box. The number can be sent to John Watson at the Lotus 7 Club of Great Britain and he can cross-reference the frame number to the original chassis number.

Edited June 17, 2012 by rzempel

[efaul]

Thanks, that's the info I was looking for.

 

Eric