2010 Lotus Touch Up Paint (3 OEM Colors)

The 2010 Lotus Vibe

By 2010, Lotus was walking a tightrope. They were busy launching the "refined" Evora to keep the accountants happy, while the Elise and Exige were still terrorizing track days with nothing but a bonded aluminum tub and a dream. The color palette that year was a perfect split personality: you had the "invisible in the shadows" vibe of Carbon Grey and Starlight Black Metallic for the grown-ups, and then you had Bright Yellow Metallic Tricoat for the guys who wanted to make sure the helicopters could find them from orbit. It was a year of peak analog performance meeting a new, high-tech aesthetic.

Paint Health Check

Welcome to the Thin Paint Era. By 2010, the robots in the paint booth had become a little too good at their jobs. We call it "Robot Efficiency"-manufacturers figured out exactly how many microns of paint they could get away with before the car looked "naked." On a Lotus, this is a double-edged sword. You've got a lightweight composite body that doesn't rust, sure, but that factory clear coat is thinner than a racetrack apology. Because the substrate is fiberglass, those thin layers are prone to "star cracks" if a pebble hits the nose at 100mph, and if the car spent too much time in the sun, that robot-applied clear can start to get brittle and chip if you so much as look at it wrong.

Restoration Tip

When you're touching up a 2010 Lotus, remember that the factory didn't "pour" this paint on-they misted it with surgical precision. If you go in there and try to fill a chip with one big, heavy blob of paint, it's going to stand out like a sore thumb. Build your layers slowly. Use a fine-tipped applicator and apply two or three paper-thin coats rather than one thick one. This mimics the factory's thin-film build and ensures the repair sits flush with the rest of the panel. For that Bright Yellow Metallic Tricoat, patience is your only friend-layer that mid-coat until the glow matches, or you'll be looking at a mismatched spot every time the sun hits it.