S1 Elise Values

[StiflerMR2]

You could always give Craig a shout and see if he could source you a car, he's done this before and I'd trust his judgement

[Shug]

Time of year may be an issue as well - I think there's a good proportion that will wait until spring, knowing that they'll get a quicker sale and potentially more money if it's not 2 degrees and soaking. I wouldn't want to give someone a test drive of an S1 with the roads like they are if they didn't know what they were getting into...

[Dominic]

Agree with Shug that the spring will bring more cars to market.

It might be worth having a look at The Lotus Forums classifieds. It may also be worth sticking up a wanted ad on here and on the Lotus Forums - you might catch the eye of someone who was planning to wait till the spring to sell, but who might move sooner.

[thesurfbus]

I will be looking to sell my S1 this year, its a 1997 MMC, 47000 miles, LRG, PM me if interested.

Doug

[chrisdb]

http://classifieds.seloc.org/ads/superb-elise-s1/

Seems like people are asking strong money for anything around 50k miles now. Can only see values going up now with all the press they got for anniversary last year.

Also seems that with every winter that passes more get written off!

[KevD]

I think service history and care is more important than mileage. Ideally you want one which is used regularly , nearly all the issues I've has with mine have been due to it sitting for too long. It's better to have 80k mile Elise which has had a suspension refresh and constant drip fed tlc than a 40k on original suspension and 7 year old tyres.

[campbell]

Agreed. 112k and counting. Used every month for 16.5 yrs. Still box fresh. Ahem.

[Mikie711]

The Elise market has two very distinct parts to it when it comes to buying and selling. The first is the market for regularly used, modified, road/track cars, normal cars to you and me. These are cars that have had sympathetic mods such as brake upgrades, suspension upgrades etc. These are well trodden paths with regard to the upgrades but bring little in the way of resale extra money, unless you snare someone looking for a car with these specific requirements. These usually sell for low to mid market prices between £6-9k depending on overall condition and milage.
The second is for original low milage well kept full-service history cars and these command big money. Despite what everyone on here thinks it is these cars that achieve the higher price points and if properly maintained then issues will be few. That aside the Elise is not an expensive car to maintain even if you need to replace a bunch of parts, relatively speaking. This makes it quite a safe classic car to buy, cheap parts that are in plentiful supply and easy to work on.
I had a low milage, 24k, car pass through my hands twice last year. First time it sold for £13500, second time was a straight trade sale and was still £10k but much because of the time of year and the fact the guy wanted to move it on quickly. If I had £10k laying around I would have bought it back and kept it, alas doing up houses is infinitely more expensive than cars.
As for future values, the lower end will probably stay around where it is now, rise slowly over the coming years. Starting price for early well used S1's will likely end up around £8k-10k. The low milage cars that are looked after, your guess is as good as mine as these will continue to climb the how fast is the hard bit to figure out.