I have been commuting and doing everything on a mtb for a long time now. Recently I have been wanting to give a road bike a try but dont have the money for something I may not like.
Was riding home yesterday and saw a pile of bikes in a scrap metal pile, stopped and asked the man outside if he mind if I looked through them before he took them off. Well I found what I guess is a '80's Lotus excelle, not in great shape but not too bad either. Tubes, tires, and cables after some cleaning and grease would be really ridable. The worst part is it is really small, like 17" from BB to top of seat post, I am only 5'5 but think it may be even to small for me.
I am wondering if it would be better to just find a frame somewhere and just throw the wheels and everything else on it or fix this up and try to sell it to buy something else. If I go the way of finding a better sized frame what are the difference to be concerned with? I am thinking I would need to find a frame with fork, then make sure the width of frame stays would have to be same to use the 700c wheels from lotus.

On a side note, this thing is light, I really wish it was more my size. I can not believe how light a steel frame can be.