I last owned an elan a decade ago, and in those days club lotus ran a parts day. Sometimes in stoneleigh and once i remember it being in donnington. Now i know these events are generally dying out but is this one also long dead ?
Tim
Yes I think it is a forlorn hope. I always attended the parts day. The wife of a friend described it as the “rusty bolt event”. I think it expired due to a lack of parts for sale. There was an ever diminishing pile of parts being offered and picked over by a diminishing number of Lotus owners who had seen these parts at the previous event and still didn’t want to buy them.
Richard Hawkins
Shame. I remember when it was at stoneleigh there were literally piles of tubular front wishbones going for stupid prices. Is there not a parts business for modern lotuses?
Tim
You are entirely incorrect Richard. The first dedicated Lotus parts fair was, I believe, held at Stoneleigh. I cannot remember the year, or even the decade, but was probably the 1990’s. It was held there for several years, and I took a few tables to display my wares on and it was great.
I always stayed in a B & B on the Saturday night, so as to be there early to set up. Again, I cannot remember if Stoneleigh was a one or two day event, the Saturday and the Sunday, or just the Sunday. I think it was just the Sunday. At that time, Club Lotus was owned by Graham & Margaret Arnold. Anyway, the fair grew bigger and bigger, and outgrew the halls at Stoneleigh, so then moved to Donington.
Around that time, the Arnold’s sold Club Lotus to Alan Morgan, and it was never the same. The parts fair was a great success at Donington too, and carried on there for several years. I seem to recall dispaying on two occasions, and coming home with pockets full of cash. Shh, don’t tell the revenue.
Then, all of a sudden, the fair was switched to Malvern. The explanation from AM was that Donington wanted to much money to rent the space out, and it could not be made to pay. What I know to be true, was that CL jacked up the prices so much one year, that several traders refused to pay it, and never showed up, inc. Chris Neil, and CL showed a loss for that year.
So on we went to Malvern, and to a different B & B on a farm. Malvern was another great show, thoroughly enjoyed by all, but that only lasted 2 years, and that was it, THE END.
I blame Alan Morgan solely for the demise of the parts fair. Why does everything have to make a profit? I would have thought ‘for the good of the club and for the enjoyment of its members’ for just ONE event per year was doable, but apparently not.
Club Lotus has to be THE worst car club in the world. There cannot be another club that organises just ONE, yes ONE meeting per year. Shame on Club Lotus.
So the last fair was about 15 years ago now, and I think it highly unlikely that an event like that would be successful today, Ebay has been massive over the last 15 years, but even that platform is suffering now, switching from charging sellers, to now charging buyers. How times have changed. People cannot keep finding parts in the attic and then selling them. There has to be a finite supply, and it is fast diminishing.
Leslie
Same happened with the Jaguar Enthusiast club spares day, it used to be run by the club for club members, marshalled by volunteers. Members and traders alike would turn up at Stoneleigh with hoards of spares to sell and have a great day meeting people. It was then handed to an individual who doubled the entrance price and hiked up the stall price. It’s now ended up at £130 or £90 for a half sized stall, so no longer a viable option for the average person selling off their unwanted spares.
Yes, Tim afraid so.
The annual Castle Combe track day is the closest we come to it. There are a few stands with parts being sold. And lots of Elans!
I usually attend but am unable to do so this year.
Tim
Tim,
Can i just pop into the castle combe track day for a wander or do i need to be a member of CL?
interestingly the triumph and MG parts days have merged and this year there were more people than i have seen in a long time. Was a gr8 event.
Tim
Hi Leslie,
+1 i fully agree with you. I had my moan with AM several years ago about prof traders putting lots of adverts in club mag and saying they were private collectors.
I came out of CL at the begining of this year.
Hi, yes you can wander into Castle Combe without being a member.
Yes there will be some stalls selling parts but I think a parts fair as they used to be is unlikely to happen again.
All the major online platforms now have to hand over sales figures to HMRC and if you sell goods over a value of £2000 in a year you will have to pay tax on it! I recognise there have been many professional sellers selling things and making big profits but I recently sold an Elan window frame I bought for £40 I think perhaps 30 years ago for considerably more now and a seat so it’s quite easy to get up and over the threshold if you have some desirable bits and bobs. So on those two items I made a “profit” but if I sell something for £20 which actually cost me say £40 back in the day because it’s not a prised goody and has now been reproduced the £20 still counts towards the £2000 limit which seems unfair. Unless of course I have a receipt from 20 years ago from a bloke I bought it from at an autojumble!
So, I have set up my own website to sell my parts and other related Lotus “stuff” that I’ve collected over 40 years. An accident a couple of years ago it made me think about things a little differently so I decided to sell off a lot of stuff to save my wife the problem later on. I’m 70 this year so I’m being more realistic and recognising the fact that some of the things I’ve been hanging onto I’m not going to get round to using and better to let other enthusiasts have them.
It’s a bit of an experiment but if it doesn’t work out then perhaps next year I might have a stall at Castle Combe to sell off the larger items like bodywork, doors, 26r wings, hardtop etc and of course all the smaller bits like wishbones etc.
I can of course put things for sale on here and might well do so but a parts fair would be a great way of selling a lot over say one or two days and without the hassle of parcels and couriers etc.
The figure that HMRC quote is actually a bit less than £2k. I believe it is £1850, but more importantly, HMRC say that if you sell more than 30 items a year, you are trading, and they want their cut. I do not think that if you sold two items of whatever, say two antiques from your home, and the two items totalled £8000 there would be tax to pay.
My beef with them is, I inherited most of the items I sell, from my parents and from a good friend. They paid income tax on their earnings to buy what they wanted, inheritance tax was paid on their estates when they died, and now, yet more tax is payable when their goods are sold! WTF
I would not mind so much, well I would actually, if taxes raised were being spent well, which we all know, it is not. Housing economic migrants in hotels, who post tick toc videos of themselves living it up at British taxpayers expense. My blood is boiling. Sell parts for cash if you can and fu-k the revenue.
Ebay have become a victim of their own success. Most weeks I would spend big money buying NOS Lotus something or other in the first few years of Ebay, but now, there are very few classic NOS Lotus parts advertised, and I think that must be the same for all make car parts, hence Ebay’s new policy of no fees for sellers, the buyer now pays a fee. There are just not the quantity of sellers out there any more. They think people cannot see through their ‘its a buyer protection fee’ scam. There always was buyer protection, it was a charge back to the seller if there was a problem, but now the buyer pays for it. My, how times have changed. Of course, the big money is now paid by trade sellers on Ebay, and the ridiculous fees they pay.
Leslie
Oh, look at that, a friendly little email from Ebay has just arrived.
'We’re getting in touch to let you know about the UK digital sales reporting law. This law requires marketplaces like eBay to collect and report seller information if you meet one of these thresholds: 30 or more sales, or sales exceeding £1740 in a calendar year.
Since you’ve reached this threshold, please update your account by providing your National Insurance number.’
Happy Easter from Ebay and HMRC
I agree with all your comments, that’s why I’ve started my own website. No fees, only postage. Genuine old but good used parts some and some not available like the Elan window frame I sold. I have a genuine not ABS crash pad to list which would be great for someone looking to do an “as original” car.
I’ve got more than 30 items but don’t consider myself as a trader, these are all items I bought many years ago which I’m not going to be able to do anything with them. Quite a lot I expect to lose money on so I would really object to the thought of being taxed on it.
I’m currently restoring an S4 which I’ve owned for 40 years, it’s the last car I’ll do a complete rebuild on and there will be surplus parts when it’s finished so that’s why I started the site and yes at some point I will have a stand somewhere if there’s no joy with the website.
@atthelimit, can you give us a link to your website?
Hi, I’m based in the Uk so sending anything to the states might get expensive.
But if you want to have a look it’s
(https://thelotuscollection.co.uk)
Really only just starting and will be adding stuff all the time as the year goes on
'‘We’re getting in touch to let you know about the UK digital sales reporting law. This law requires marketplaces like eBay to collect and report seller information if you meet one of these thresholds: 30 or more sales, or sales exceeding £1740 in a calendar year’
And that is another reason why there are so few private sellers of car parts on Ebay now. Who wants to pay tax on stuff they they collected over the years but now want to dispose of because they wont use it.
The tax that HMRC will collect by targeting these sales must be miniscule, compared with companies like Amazon, who pay miniscule amounts of tax due to ineffective tax rules. Quite ridiculous.
Leslie
I’m sure Ebay have done a deal where they sell out sellers details so that they can avoid paying tax themselves.
Conversely. I knew a number of people in the past who are absolutely raking in the cash reselling chinese electronic gear on ebay and not paying tax. In the end paying tax is part of being a citizen of a country.
I don’t mind paying tax when/if I make money, but something I bought for £50 say 20 years ago and sell now for £30 and because I don’t have a purchase receipt so have to pay tax on seems a bit rough.
It’s not eBay’s fault it applies to all the major platforms and when some one is registered as a private seller but have sold 8000 items I get it, me I’ve been on eBay since 2002, sold 205 items and hardly any of these have been lotus related. So I don’t mind the clamp down on some private but who are actually business sellers.
Guess it’s just bad timing for me now that I’ve decided to let go of things before time catches up with me.
Do know what you mean but strictly to the law you should have kept a note of how much you bought it for… of course not something any of us do… at least private car sales are tax free otherwise we would all be in big trouble.
Tim
Yes but then the wife might find out what I paid for it!