The Lotus Grand Tourers

Just noticed on Lotus Bits, they have put a date of July 2012 for availability £220 each + VAT
After looking at mine today and trying to reset the position I think mine will need 2 new ones soon! Middle upright is no longer fastened at the bottom rotten to the core!

Put me down for driver and passenger side. Ready for these a.s.a.p

Was on the phone to Lotus Bits yesterday and asked Dave about the Window Frames.
The reply was there was not enough interest to manufacturer, they still need minimum of 20 to justify making
Mine are now looking pretty grim, they are offering to re-braising them or using Eclat frames and adapting to fit the Excel, which sounds like a good plan!?
Anybody had this done....(MRCOOLA)

Richy B wrote:Was on the phone to Lotus Bits yesterday and asked Dave about the Window Frames.
The reply was there was not enough interest to manufacturer, they still need minimum of 20 to justify making
Mine are now looking pretty grim, they are offering to re-braising them or using Eclat frames and adapting to fit the Excel, which sounds like a good plan!?
Anybody had this done....(MRCOOLA)

We have more than 20 interested (the figure needed was higher when this thread started). I'll call Mike & Dave next week to let them know.

Spoke to Mike taylor yesterday. The order is waiting for the company that are to produce the frames to pay off a new piece of CNC machinery. Apparently they have just paid out a million pounds on new equipment so are choosing other work to pay this off quickly, hence the window frames are not priority to them. I wouldnt expect to see the frames done in the next few months.

I would be interested in both sides once I have got over the initial expense of buying the car and then £3,500 to get it sorted out and running reliably. probably be sometime next year for me.

Marky.

I might be interested in these if/when they are produced.

If anyone is interested I have a good passenger side window frame which I would like to swap for a driver side one..

[quote="age6racer"]I might be interested in these if/when they are produced.quote]

MIGHT be interested is unfortunately a very common problem and the reason these haven't yet been produced.
Whoever produces these will be taking on a very large risk and financial burden.

Me and a few others have looked at several ways of cutting this and at the moment there isn't enough commitment to warrant the outlay.
As the need becomes greater due to the lack of repairable frames the issue will be looked at more seriously.

Several problems:

1. What material to make them out of?
2. Aluminium extrusion requires a die to be made and has a minimum length order = expensive. The minimum order I managed to source would be the equivalent to make 150 frames
3. Aluminium requires forming/bending and welding to shape within 2 weeks of extrusion or it hardens and cannot be used. How long would it take an engineering company to build 150 frames?

4. Fibreglass/carbon composite - expensive initial first mould, time consuming to build up layers. Labour intensive = expensive
5. Where to store all the frames

If and when the frames get produced there is still a risk that the frames wont stand up to the punishment, so potentially someone could be left with a large quantity of scrap metal or rubbish if they don't work.

I will look at this again soon but currently have bigger priorities as does Mike I would guess.

If Mike produced them he would also want to run the frames for a while before unleashing the product on the world....can't think of anything worse than the frames being installed then failing 6months to a year down the line and having to repair or replace them all at his own expense - it doesn't bear thinking about for a business.
This is why all new products are first tested on the rally cars for a season before he will sell any new item on - this way he can vouch for their longevity.

age6racer I hope that didn't sound snappy. Just trying to explain the pain that such a seemingly simple problem has produced in the community

[Thread locked pending further developments]

I have a promising lead on this now. Still in the very early stages, but someone in the industry is helping. No details & no promises until we get a bit further advanced with the process.

Definitely some very promising progress on this today.

OK - we're back to talking about numbers again - but this time, it looks like the base cost is going to be much more manageable and something we can probably arrange through the club.

If you're still interested, please could you post again here with an indication of what you consider a reasonable price per frame would be.

(Oh, and we might even be able to do some custom colours for those who like bling).

here, here

a set for my Eclat please!

Thanks for your efforts, Angus

I really do need to know what sort of price you would be prepared to pay. We have a pretty good idea of production costs but there's no point in getting the section made and commissioning the manufacture if nobody is prepared to pay what it will actually cost.