TLF GT430 Club

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

You did the math!

[C8RKH]

1 hour ago, jimichanga said:

First place to look would be the reasons you didn't buy one, surely?

Because a few months earlier I had bought a 410Sport brand new.

The reason i don't have one now is two fold:

1. I dithered re the very nice blue one that B&C had for sale

2. There is only 1 in the UK to buy and now, the cost to change of say £30k just does not attract - as it did not with the GT430. I could buy a nice Esprit Turbo and keep my 410 Sport for the cost to change.

[Bruss]

33 minutes ago, LotusLeftLotusRight said:

You did the math!

It had a question mark.

 

Were there 160 sold? I hasn’t realised so many were made.

[C8RKH]

2 minutes ago, Bruss said:

It had a question mark.

 

Were there 160 sold? I hasn’t realised so many were made.

Common as muck then. More GT430's sold than 400's lol....

Glad I got one of 25 sold worldwide 410Sports..... Much more exclusive! 

 

 

[Yan]

If you go back about 2 pages in this thread there are 2 posts that say there are 45 LHD, and the other says 25 in the UK. If we assume those numbers include the wingless Sport, then that's 39 LHD, 24 UK. Add to that the 4 in Australia. So that's at least 67 GT430.

Only other markets outside Europe, UK, Australia I assume would be Japan, New Zealand and South Africa for RHD. 

Edit: re-reading the earlier post, the LHD number makes no mention of Europe, so I'm now assuming 45 LHD worldwide. Either way, there's more than 60 GT430s.

My CoP specifically calls out numbers excluding the winged wonder and says there were 8 production Sports. No mention of RHD or LHD, or any particular region. 

The diff between Sport and not is quite small (OK, not physically, because that wing, but you know what I mean). At the moment we can count 75 total GT430 and GT430 Sport combined. 

Edited April 28, 2021 by Yan

[DBG]

Follow this thread just to admire the front bumper 👌🏼

[blindside]

15 hours ago, Yan said:

The diff between Sport and not is quite small (OK, not physically, because that wing, but you know what I mean). At the moment we can count 75 total GT430 and GT430 Sport combined. 

Both models are great cars & closely related, but the differences are not just cosmetic. The GT430 wing, front splitter, vented front wings & wider rear wheels/tyres to cope with the additional downforce added around £8k to the UK list price between the 2 models. The aero package is carefully designed to provide significant benefits on track that are reflected in factory performance figures. 

You’ve also overestimated the number of cars produced. 
Lotus said they would make a limited run of up to 60 cars in each model, with build approval based on confirmed customer orders/receipts.

We know as fact that just 8 x GT430 Sports were produced in total (1x UK & 6 worldwide), with locations thanks to @Black Forest Power; so no issue there.

We know as fact that 21 x GT430 were produced for the UK market. There is some conjecture around how many were produced for the world wide market. An informed estimate is that it’s very unlikely that they made a further 39 cars to reach the 60 mark. It’s more likely to be somewhere around 30 to 35 cars at most, but only the factory will know for sure.  

You can probably ‘do the math’ based on this. 
 

[blindside]

25 minutes ago, blindside said:

We know as fact that just 8 x GT430 Sports were produced in total (1x UK & 6 worldwide)

Should read 7 worldwide. Pardon the obvious error. 🙄

[jimichanga]

500 675LT Coupes and a further 500 675LT Spyders. Most consider that a very rare, exclusive, limited production car. There are 499 La Ferraris, 375 McLaren P1s and 918 Porsche 918 Spyders. 

So whether there are a few more than 60 GT430s or a handful of GT430 Sport orders became GT430s it really doesn't alter the fact that the GT430 remains spectacularly rare by any measure. Shame really, it would be nice to see a few more of them about.

 

[Ali tuck]

How many owners on here?

[Heathermead]

With the Exige LF1 which was a special edition limited & individually numbered to represent each of Lotus Formula 1 victories it was much easier to track the worldwide whereabouts of each individual car. 
with the Evora GT430 & 430 sport I’m not sure how this can easily be done as It would be interesting to know more about each car, colour, mileage, spec, whereabouts & current owner. 

[Xynagy]

I have an Excel sheet with a lot of Information as a base which could be updated by the users. If someone is willing to upload I can send it.

 

[Bibs]

Pop it over and I'll host it on Google Drive so it can still be edited if you like

bibs@thelotusforums.com

[Black Forest Power]

7 hours ago, blindside said:

Both models are great cars & closely related, but the differences are not just cosmetic. The GT430 wing, front splitter, vented front wings & wider rear wheels/tyres to cope with the additional downforce added around £8k to the UK list price between the 2 models. The aero package is carefully designed to provide significant benefits on track that are reflected in factory performance figures. 

To check the applied differences on our own we ran a GT430 Sport and a GT430 side by side on a race track with exactly the same Ohlins settings, same ride height and same wider wheels/tyres.

It was amazing how much distance the GT430 Sport gained against the downforce dragged GT430 on longer straights. Of course, as expected the GT430 Sport was losing some time in high speed corners.

But in our case the GT430 couldn’t compensate its additional drag with more cornering downforce.

As always, there isn’t a general significant benefit for any track with fixed aeros.

Race track characteristics seem to be pretty essential for the lap times of the two GT430 variants.

[jimichanga]

Interesting but you should expect them to be closely matched especially with the same wider tyres. The Sport also makes more downforce than any previous Evora so you're not comparing the GT430's downforce with zero. Claim for the Sport was 100kg of downforce - about the same as the 911 GT3. Gain in high speed corners could just come from more confidence due to feeling of increased stability. It very much depends how the cars are being driven and if the driver was able to extract all of the performance advantage from the GT430. I would not expect your average sports car driver to be able to exploit the full potential of either car.

[Yan]

9 hours ago, blindside said:

You’ve also overestimated the number of cars produced. 

I based my number off posts in this very thread on 28 March by @Xynagy and @Birtyboy.

Also not downplaying the aero added to the GT430, however those can easily be retrofitted, perhaps most difficult would be the vents above the front wheel arches. Do agree the downforce makes significant differences in high speed corners.

Mine has the wider rear wheels already.

Either way, they're rare and IMHO, very special cars indeed.

[GeorgeFranklin]

On 28/04/2021 at 10:47, Yan said:

Received my CoP today.

I had previously discovered mine is the only GT430 Sport in Australia.

Now I know these are even more rare than I first thought. #1 of 8 production models.

There's another Fire Red example somewhere in the world, though the interior trim is different. Are you out there dear twin?

Love your car! Kicking myself I did not pick it up.

[DDubya]

Take Two…… I hope I’m not tempting fate here, but found another, identical spec and trim. Paid for and collecting By end of the week.

PS, Plate not with the car, my son pointed out that ‘Fisting’ was not a good choice😂😂

[exeterjeep]

3 minutes ago, DDubya said:

Take Two…… I hope I’m not tempting fate here, but found another, identical spec and trim. Paid for and collecting By end of the week.

Congrats, I was at SWLC yesterday, mine having its first MOT and a service, had a chat to James about what you were probably buying. So 2 GT430's in Devon..

[Heathermead]

22 minutes ago, DDubya said:

Take Two…… I hope I’m not tempting fate here, but found another, identical spec and trim. Paid for and collecting By end of the week.

PS, Plate not with the car, my son pointed out that ‘Fisting’ was not a good choice😂😂

Looks like you've followed the same path as me. Exige LF1 (No,39) to Evora GT430, shame we couldn't keep both. Think your going to love the GT430 

[Ali tuck]

Awesome- your going to love it,they’re mega!

[dcmp]

On 29/04/2021 at 15:14, Heathermead said:

With the Exige LF1 which was a special edition limited & individually numbered to represent each of Lotus Formula 1 victories it was much easier to track the worldwide whereabouts of each individual car. 
with the Evora GT430 & 430 sport I’m not sure how this can easily be done as It would be interesting to know more about each car, colour, mileage, spec, whereabouts & current owner. 

I've always wondered what the plate in the gt430s actually means. Mine says 1 of 60. But I don't think it's the first of 60 and I think I've seen others say the same thing. So yes, to me it should have been the same as the lf1. 

 

As a side issue, I'm going to caffeine and machines on the 23rd to see the expensive electric thing again. Anyone else going? 

[exeterjeep]

5 minutes ago, dcmp said:

But I don't think it's the first of 60 and I think I've seen others say the same thing. So yes, to me it should have been the same as the lf1.

Lotus managed to have each Elan M100 S2 to have unique numbers on the edition plate. It is a shame they did not do it on the gt430's as it would help really knowing how many were actually made.

[Gazm]

Well done, I’ve been looking for a while but working overseas makes it tricky. 🙄

[jep]

13 minutes ago, exeterjeep said:

21 minutes ago, dcmp said:

But I don't think it's the first of 60 and I think I've seen others say the same thing. So yes, to me it should have been the same as the lf1.

Lotus managed to have each Elan M100 S2 to have unique numbers on the edition plate

My Elan M100 S2 is not numbered...did they make 801? 

340R are numbered - but the factory kept no records Ltd Ed number to chassis number. So Ltd Ed numbers can get moved, faked, mistake etc...chassis number more reliable. 

Justin