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Mike Taylor’s association with Lotus began in the early ’90s with an M50 Elite project car.
“I built a chassis for it, but was spending £500 on parts every week at a local specialist,” he recalls.
“Then I found an Éclat in a scrapyard. It had new dampers and a new radiator, so I bought it for £350 and before long had earned £3000 by breaking it.
“I ended up buying cars to strip for spares, and worked from home until the neighbours complained.”
![The spares stacked high at Lotusbits Classic & Sports Car – The specialist: Lotusbits](/sites/default/files/2021-12/Classic%20%26%20Sports%20Car%20%E2%80%93%20The%20specialist%20%E2%80%93%20Lotusbits%20%E2%80%93%202.png)
Donor cars are still yielding plenty of useful used spares
At that stage Taylor was still designing engine management systems and immobilisers for Lucas, Valeo, Nissan and others – he still has patents in his name.
He turned his hobby into a business in 2005 when he remortgaged his house to buy an industrial estate near Rugby.
The gamble paid off, and Taylor went full time in ’07. What began as a series of huts is now home to modern, purpose-built units and some 20 firms, hand-picked for their car-related specialisms.
Early on Taylor found that selling secondhand parts was seasonal: “We didn’t do much from November to February, then things would go mad in March and April when people got their cars out.