S1 Elise front ground clearance

[Petrol_fumes]

Hi guys,

Random question and i'd really appreciate help if any owners have a few minutes.

I'm close to buying an S1 Elise but I have a concern that I won't be able to get in on my drive in London. I have a short-steep (ish) incline from the road into the pavement and drive and i don't want to ground the car.

Would someone be kind enough to measure from the centre of their front wheel to the bottom of the nose and also let me know the ground clearance of the nose?

All help greatly appreciated as i can't find these measurements online.

[kambites]

It varies depending on the exact model and many are no longer standard, so be wary of using official figures.

[pthelazyjourno]

Petrol_fumes said:

Hi guys,

Random question and i'd really appreciate help if any owners have a few minutes.

I'm close to buying an S1 Elise but I have a concern that I won't be able to get in on my drive in London. I have a short-steep (ish) incline from the road into the pavement and drive and i don't want to ground the car.

Would someone be kind enough to measure from the centre of their front wheel to the bottom of the nose and also let me know the ground clearance of the nose?

All help greatly appreciated as i can't find these measurements online.

I'll try and measure mine if I can find a tape measure. It has been lowered slightly, but is probably indicative of the many cars you'll now find on S2 Bilsteins/aftermarket dampers and springs etc. It's definitely worth searching for a car with new dampers at least, as it's £700+ to refresh.

I've scraped the front of mine on a couple of things. It's usually just the numberplate though - which is now held on by velcro.

[Petrol_fumes]

thanks - much appreciated

[GT03ROB]

I'll check tonight if you still need anything, but I've not found it too much of a problem

[spiralp]

My wife's 1999 S1 is 140mm, but most S1s will be lower than this. It has Bilstein S2 suspension but we had it set to the original ride height. I seem to recall that the later S1s had a higher ride height than the earlier models, and it is often referred to as 'comedy ride height'. As already stated, most S1 Elises have had the ride height lowered, usually when replacing the Konis. We chose to leave the ride height as original, but we still catch the number plate from time to time. We have a slight incline on the access to our house and it is best approached slowly and at an angle to avoid removing the number plate. We treat number plates as a consumable item.

Centre of front wheel to front of car is 700mm.

Edited by spiralp on Thursday 17th March 12:25

[Sumshi]

Somewhat of a pain but you could use planks to bridge the valley