3 days ago a listing came up for an esprit at $4 grand. I asked the seller if it looked like a ferrari or the car 007 drove out of the sea. He replied, sure! I arrived at a neatly trimmed block of 1 story italianette homes. The residence I arrived at was sorely out of place. It was a ramshackle affair with sorely overgrown landscaping. A young woman, who I later would figure was the look-out, waved me around back. There I found a young green-eyed Latino man with a hunchback. I struggled a handshake and some eye contact out of him and he motioned me to the garage. The backyard was strewn with rubbish and it wasn’t an entirely foreign scenario to me. I just wanted the cars. And so it began. After a short conversation it was apparent that the young man just wanted any cash and I whittled the price down to a mind boggling figure. What I got was a disheveled Europa with right hand drive and the sweet scent of rat urine and a blue sonnet buried in boxes. For 20 years they had sat. Time capsules, all this for $2 grand. I called Margarido and he was on his way to drag my finds home. We turned to count the cash and a stern voice said, “hands up boys! And have a seat.” The cops arrived, 6 of ’em and the plot thickened. I handed over my ID and stated my purpose. The green-eyed bandit however had no ID. He said it must be mixed in the boxes of refuse he had been clearing from the family home. It had been a drug den; I’m no spring chicken. One of the cops nudged a meth cooker thing like you see on breaking bad with his foot. His story crumbled further and I should have left when he said he had no ID. It was his grandpa’s house and he passed and they(he) were clearing it out to prep for sale. The cops were having none of it. They had seen this character before. The situation was deteriorating but I asked to stay to see if they could let him sell me the cars. The cops for some reason seemed to think that was reasonable. The bandit said he had mail coming to the residence and produced a letter to him from a bail bondsmen. At that point the boys in blue all began to curse him out and I asked to be excused. I hopped in the big green dodge and played my Steve Miller tape all the way back to Berkeley. The listing is still up, check it out, says lotus spirit on sf Craig’s.
You can’t make this sh$t up.

http://bringatrailer.com/2014/07/23/1972-lotus-europa-twin-cam-4/