This vehicle comes to us courtesy of a vendor who is very well-known to us here and who has, over many years of enviable classic motoring experience, driven, bought, owned and sold more classic and prestige cars than most of us could reasonably hope to shake a stick at.

Now and again, he finds himself in the midst of part-exchange deals of the sort where he swaps car ‘A’ in exchange for cars ‘B’, ‘C’ and ‘D’, then sells car ‘C’ to the chap who sold car ‘A’ to the previous vendor, then buys car ‘E’ and finds that car ‘B’ has become surplus to requirements while he has his people at Bicester tinker with car ‘D’.

This scenario applies particularly if car ‘B’ is markedly different from the E Types, Aston Martin DB4GTs, XK150s, etc, in which he normally dabbles, delights and exercises his connoisseurship.

Still with us? That’s pretty much the story behind this Lotus Elise 220 Sport and its presence at our Oxfordshire HQ.

First things first - it is a low-mileage example, in exceptional c...