This week, the Lotus Elan turned 60 years old. There wasn't a ton of fanfare. Just a press release from Lotus, and not much else. Strange, given that the Elan is one of the greatest sports cars ever made.The Elan was a revelation. Debuting at Earl's Court on October 17th, 1962 , the Elan represented a radical departure for sports-car design.
This was a time of experimentation. As the world emerged from the shadow of the War, automakers seemed to make up for lost time, radically evolving the automobile. Lotus quickly moved from making a car based on the then-ancient Austin 7, to building some of the world's finest street cars. Lotus founder Colin Chapman intended the Elan as a successor of sorts to the Elite, the company's first production street car. The Elite was a fatally flawed innovator. Its fiberglass body was the chassis itself—not unlike a carbon-monocoque supercar today—to which a steel subframe containing the engine, transmission and front suspension was bonded. Like the Elan, the Elite was light and stiff, but fragile. Worse for Lotus, it was ruinously expensive to make.
Also cheaper was Lotus's new engine. The Elite used the Coventry Climax four-cylinder, an all-alloy unit originally designed for water pumps. The Coventry Climax was built in small numbers, and Chapman thought that Lotus could save money by using an engine based on something built in higher volumes, so it worked with Ford to develop a new twin-cam four.
It was the right combination of ingredients, executed to perfection. Low weight plus good power from the Ford-Lotus Twin Cam made the Elan something of a giant-killer. Our
Time for someone like factory five to produce an elan kit car.
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