Man buys $148,000 dream Lotus Emira on eBay after car had sat abandoned for 16 months and says he 'wasn't ready' for the state of the car

When this man picked up a Lotus Emira from eBay, he couldn’t have anticipated what sort of state it would arrive in.

Originally estimated to cost $148,000, YouTuber David picked it up from eBay for the significantly cheaper price of $56,000.

It had been deemed a Category S vehicle, so he knew there would be work to do when it arrived.

But he didn’t know it would be this much work.

This Lotus Emira had been sitting still for 16 months – and needed a lot of work to get running again

Being dormant for a long time won’t do a car any good – just take a look at this Honda Prelude for proof of that.

Throw in some structural damage, and you’ve got yourself one challenging car.

David had purchased this Lotus Emira for cheap, owing to its Category S status.

While a previous owner had attempted some repairs, a lot of the work had either gone unfinished or wasn’t done properly.

That left David with quite the workload.

He made a good start by replacing the dead battery with a new unit and bringing the 3.5L supercharged V6 back to life with a starter pack.

But there was no time to pat himself on the back, as there were a number of underlying mechanical issues.

Both of the front wheels suffered from loose suspension, while a broken ABS sensor cable lurked near the brake discs.

And that’s not forgetting the power steering and coolant pipes, which had been routed incorrectly.

They were crossing over each other in a way that would cause the pipes to wear down.

So evidently, there was a lot of work that needed to be tackled.

Could he get it done, or would this be a fruitless endeavor?

Some unexpected surprises complicate the repair further

To fix the pipe routing, David had to dismantle the front of the car, which opened up a whole can of worms.

More and more issues emerged, hidden deep in the chassis.

This ranged from standing water in the fuse box to smashed-up plastic on the HVAC box.

The latter would be particularly costly, as a replacement would have set him back more than $1,000.

By the video’s end, he concluded that the car was in a state of ‘pure mayhem’, but he vowed to see the repair through to the bitter end.

“Honestly, the Emira has been quite a challenging project so far,” David told Supercar Blondie.

“When I bought it, I didn’t realize how much had already been attempted, so a big part of the process has been undoing previous repairs and figuring out what’s actually right and what’s not.

“Another challenge with the Emira is there’s very little in-depth information out there, so a lot of the time I’m having to figure out how things should go myself.

“And my goal is always to rebuild the car to the OEM manufacturer standard or better. 

“It hasn’t been straightforward at all, but that’s what makes the journey real. Excited to see where it ends up.”

There’s no two ways about it – repairs are usually costly and time-consuming.

One need only look at Mat Armstrong’s ongoing efforts with his Bugatti Chiron for proof of that.