1988 Evante Mk I
Offered by Historics Auctioneers | Ascot, U.K. | May 15, 2021
Evante Cars Ltd was founded by George Walter Robinson in Spalding, England, in 1987 as an offshoot of Vegantune, a restorer of Lotus Elans. Vegantune found opportunities for improving the Elan, thus the formation of Evante to build a “modern” Elan.
The Evante roughly shares the Elan’s looks and is bodied in fiberglass over a tubular steel spaceframe chassis. This car is powered by a Ford-based 1.7-liter inline-four rated at 170 horsepower. The cars were built to order at a time when the global economy was in a recession. So it didn’t go great.
Production stopped in 1991, and the rights to the design passed between a few other companies over the years, with an Evante Mk II appearing later on in the 1990s. This Vegantune-era example carries a pre-sale estimate of $16,000-$22,000. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.
Update: Sold $16,811.