This picture is from the original for sale ad in 2014 and shows the biscuit interior. Many like this colour scheme, but at the time I thought it was a clash with the blue and silver and always intended to change it to a blue turbo interior if ever one became available, though I see now its appeal.

..although it looks in great shape above, the interior had suffered from shoddy assembly, with missing minor trim, lack of correct fixings and marked plastics.

Much of it had been bonded on making removal without damage very difficult.

With the fabled blue interior not available, I decided to soften the stripped out extreme cabin in favour of leather and carpets for a while, much to the delight of my lovely wife.

This meant a couple of weekends of carefully stripping back the old leather and vinyl and applying ready made leather covering in black with blue stitching..

To get the seats to match I used Woollies leather dye. This takes a lot of hard work in preperation to take the leather back, then hand rubbing the dye into the seat panel followed by several thin spray coats. Its then sealed with a satin spray on leather sealer and I also Renapur all my leather.

These pictures were taken over two years after the seats were dyed and the leather was fitted and its worn really well. The first time I changed a seat color was in my Esprit Turbo around 1998, I used the Woolies hand made mixtures then and have found little else that gives a great original look to the leather without dryng out and cracking. Note the touring pack carpet set.

This is about the time a blue VXT interior appeared on Ebay......

Tips...

With many of these cars being over fifteen years old and using the lightweight materials Lotus favor you will inevitably find some damage.

On the side sills I always recess HD Velcro flush on the underside and plastic (epoxied on) then fill the screw holes on the sides. This makes it secure, easy to remove and takes the strain off fixings when climbing in.

If you find damaged foam structure inside doors or other trim, it can be glued successfully with an epaxy resin like this one found in Poundstretcher.

The lumbar support can often deflate. Its rarely the airbag itself, usually a little oil in the valve on the end of the pump will cure this.

You can buy a new pump for £25 from Lotus or replace it with the much hardier version found on these mini air jacks in places like Homebase for around £5.

If you've been restoring your soft-top and have some Renovo left, take a small paint brush and apply it to your faded and tired looking seat bolsters to bring them up like new.

You can bond down small wear holes and tears and this will pretty effectivley take the bad look off those too.

So, now its 2017 and look what just appeared on Ebay.

You may wonder why I want this tatty interior from a crashed VXT sooo much when I have a very expensive full leather interior that I painstakingly fitted.

Firstly its orignal and how the car would look when it came straight from the Lotus factory to the Vauxhall showroom...

...then theres my history with the VXT. This picture above is of my first VXT and its blue interior. I think it suits the blue car, is dramatic and reflects the lightweight stripped out and extreme nature of the VXT perfectly as well as being reminiscent of a car I really regretted selling many years ago.

Having come from a crashed car there are marks and damage on the seats that I need to fix, so I made repairs and then got a custom made color matched dye from Woolies to rejuvinate the blue panels.

The pictures of the fitted blue interior are from my first VXT, I'll add some of this newly restored interior soon.

You'll notice the centre brace in the pictures of my interiors. These were an option and although being an intricately machined alloy part, they serve no purpose apart from design.

I was lucky enough to pick up a new unfitted one in original packaging in 2016, but if you want the same expect to wait a very long time then part with over £200 for the same.

I also hand made a limited run of carbon fibre kydex gauge clusters based on the centre brace design.

Theres a page about these elsewhere on the site.

So whats with all the triangles?

As the VXT was mostly manufactured as the Opel Speedster, the triangles originate from cars like the Ascona400, Manta400 and other Opel race cars as seen on the bonnet of Simons M400R here and so they imply an Opel lineage to detract from the fact they were built by Lotus who favor circular details.

MY VX220 TURBO INTERIORS