I've got a few models (mainly Lotus) and I bought one of these as well in red and it seems like a nice model.
Like everybody else I've got the raised hump on the back of the roof although I didn't notice it until I read Tony's post. Also like everyone else I've no idea why it's there!
Mine also says "001 of 120" so I guess it just means 1 out of 120 and not number 001 in the production run.
I find it interesting that they chose to use real UK cars for their number plates so I had a quick look around to see if I could find out more info.
The red one - G296 DPE - comes up with a hit on classiccars.co.uk where it was for sale with 68k miles at £10k. Not sure when the advert dates from though - I'd guess at about 15 years ago. Also comes up on flickr dated 2016 with a Haydon Cars (dealer based in Lymington) sticker on it.
The green one - F135 RPL - is actually an SA, whereas the model version clealrly is not. It belongs to Will49 on this forum - there's a thread about it here:
https://lotusexcel.net/viewtopic.php?p=104897. He could probably telll us more about its history.
One thing I notice is that both F135 RPL and G296 DPE have different rear badging from the model (and from each other) - see pic. Did Lotus change around the badges on the Excel at the back a lot through the years, there seems to be quite a few variations?
