The Lotus 340R is a limited edition sports car manufactured by Lotus Cars in 2000 at their Hethel factory. Norfolk, UK. The 340R is a special edition of the Lotus Elise. Just 340 were built, and all were sold before they were manufactured. It uses a custom built bodyshell with no roof and no doors. All cars came with a silver and black colour scheme, special A038R tyres were developed for the 340R in collaboration with Yokohama. While road-legal in the UK, most of the surviving cars are used for racing, track use, or demonstrations. The engine is a four cylinder tweaked version of the Rover K-Series engine called VHPD (Very High Power Derivative) used in the regular Elise which produces 177 bhp at 7800 rpm and 127 ft•lb at 6750 rpm as standard, or 187 bhp at 7500 rpm and 139 ft•lb at 5600 rpm with optional Lotus accessories. Weight: 701 kg (kerb: all fluids and full tank of fuel) Performance: 0–62 mph 4,4 sec; 0-99 mph 10,7 sec, top 130 mph Power to Weight: 252 bhp/Ton There are probably less than 300 of these little beasts remaining now. I remember a magazine running one of these back in the day, I’m sure they bashed theirs too and it needed a new tub. Anyway on to the action, I was contacted by the owner and was asked to prepare the car ready for a custom PPF install to be carried out by Paintshield. Tom was as accommodating as ever allowing me to do my work in his amazing workshop (p.s. I’m not Paul Dalton and it's not my unit as someone thought on the Audi TT forum :buffer Plans had to be rearranged as the car arrived two days late, a car with no roof and the amount of rain we had in August the owner did a great job in getting the car to Paintshield at all! Never mind in the super clean condition I found it in on my arrival. The car was first heavily spritzed with Chemical Guys No Rinse then carefully wiped down with lots of plush MF towels, followed by a light claying with Dura Gloss Green, a bit of Tardis tar and glue remover here and there and the car was ready for correction polishing stage. Fortunately I had google’d some images of the car, So a couple of days before I got myself up to Spautopia and got stocked up on plenty of spot pads, ready for the tricky correction ahead. To be fair the car wasn’t in bad condition, the black sills and sides being the worst, although this was to be an enhancement detail (normally a single stage machine polish) I had a little extra time so I thought It was a good opportunity to use the Scholl Concepts range I’ve been extensively testing for a while now with great results. Most of the correction was carried out with Scholl S40 (finishing polish) and any remaining marks were corrected with S17+ (Medium cut but very variable with pad choice) The main silver panels were mostly done with S40 on an Orange Scholl pad this combination worked a treat in restoring the clarity to the paint, for any niggling deeper scratches I stepped up to S17+ with a Blue Spot pad then followed up by Scholl S40 again. Swirls and scratches on engine cover. And holograms. Corrected :thumb: Holograms gone. Clarity restored to paintwork. Working the S17+ Engine cover and back end corrected. The sills were pretty bad so I broke out a Spautopia 80mm wool pad, one steady pass with S17+ had all bar the deepest marks removed, followed round with S17+ this time on the blue pad, then S40 for that super high gloss and to get the metallic flake popping in the paint. Once I was happy the corrected panels were wiped over with SW20 Spray Wax, I really like this product for its speed and ease of use, this also allowed the Paintshield boys to start making patterns ready for the install, without the fear of messing up each other’s work. I knew there would be a few places where I wouldn’t be able to get the rotary in, so picked up a few of these hand polishing pads again made by Scholl, here you can see me working S17+ in on the rear mud guard, under the lights Correction achieved! Pretty impressed with these to say the least! Working the rotary on the mud guard = super tight space! Note my hand over the machines head to prevent any possible damage. Other sides mud guard corrected. Once all the correction was done, the car was carefully wiped down and then waxed with W6+ liquid wax, super easy on and off. I couldn’t resist trying out the beading too! Intricate painted areas like the insides of the wheel arches and mud flaps were done with Scholl A15 AIO. With the car corrected and waxed I left the Paintshield boys to work their magic, once they had completed their work, I came back and gave the car one last wipe over, and applied SV Shield wax customers choice for its toughness and durability. The exposed alloy tub and exhaust where treated to Britemax metal twins. Glass cleaned and the windscreen surround treated with a new liquid LSP that’s nearly ready for launch that I have been putting through its paces, the main thing is it will protect any painted surface but it will not change its light refraction, making it ideal for Matt finishes. Protected. but still nice and Matt! Overall quite a tricky but rewarding detail. Time for the finished results. My favourite pic :thumb: Hope you’ve enjoyed! Regards, Roy.
