Variations on a Lotus theme
Lotus is an auto maker with a storied past, and one that has defied expectations to survive for more than three-quarters of a century.
In that time it has punched above its weight over and over again, while ducking the soap-opera boomerangs of serial ownership.
However, not all remain as their maker intended.
Some racing cars lose their competitive edge as the seasons tick by and fall down the food chain until they end up in club motorsport.
There they are chopped and changed, hacked about and reconfigured in an attempt to remain in contention.
Then there are those that serve as the basis for home-brewed road cars – the suburban exotica fueled by enthusiasm and enterprise.
And let’s not forget the dealer conversions: standalone special editions dreamed up by concessionaires keen to plug an apparent gap in the model range.
In addition, there are those in which the Lotus origins are obvious but actively played down.
Gathered here are 10 such vehicles, each with a compelling – if sometimes improbable – story to tell.
1. ‘Bodywork’ Eleven
Originality wasn’t always prized when it came to aged race cars.
The Lotus Eleven pictured here was merely an obsolete project car when it was acquired in the mid-1960s by Flight Lieutenant Les Aylott.
The Surrey-born, Rutland-domiciled RAF pilot would go on to achieve miracles with the Lotus, and the venerable machine of indeterminate age received the sort of modifications year-on-year that would make a latter-day restorer wince.
‘Bodywork’, as Autosport took to calling Aylott, first ventured trackside in 1965, when the Lotus was fitted with a Lancia Aurelia V6 engine.
The Italian unit was then swapped for a tuned Ford crossflow four-banger in quick succession, and Aylott began racking up class wins.
That engine in turn was replaced by a Lotus Twin Cam, and in this configuration Aylott claimed class honors in the 1969 Motoring News/Castrol sports-car series.
The Eleven had by then been altered out of all recognition, with fold-flat headlights, prominent hood bulges and wheelarch extensions.
It was also running a home-brewed front suspension set-up.
The motorsport weeklies often commented on the car’s battered appearance, hence its driver’s irony-steeped nickname.
Anorak fact It is widely held that the car was cannibalized, some parts being incorporated into Aylott’s follow-up racer, the Ardua Mk1, which he largely designed.
2. Elan +2 Chrysalis
John Bishop wasn’t one to let inexperience get in the way of creating his dream car.
In 1974, the Surrey heating engineer acquired a burned-out Elan +2 for £170.
The fiberglass body was destroyed, but the backbone chassis and engine had escaped the inferno largely unscathed – although first the sorry remains of the car had to be extricated from a field.
Bishop then commandeered a neighbor’s garage and set about creating the buck for a new bodyshell.
The outline was to an extent dictated by the use of a Ford Consul Capri windshield, while the signature feature was a novel roof arrangement: the Perspex center section would slip back over the sliding rear windshield, should Bishop desire flow-through ventilation, or it could be removed entirely.
The fiberglass body was created at home, with a tubular steel structure in the cockpit offering anchor points and reinforcement (a hospital bed gave up its metalwork for the cause).
The car was painted in Ferrari red over black by Bishop; he used his aircraft-modeling spray gun, too.
The car hit the road in ’76, with build costs amounting to around £800.
Bishop promptly dubbed his one-off ‘Chrysalis’ and pressed it into regular service.
Anorak fact Proprietary parts included a Vauxhall Cavalier rear bumper and a front hood lock from a Reliant Supervan
3. Hexagon Elan +2
Dealer and race entrant Paul Michaels wasn’t above going his own way and producing standalone Lotus variants, most memorably the brace of ‘Elanbulance’ shooting brakes.
What tends to be forgotten is that he followed through with a less celebrated conversion: an Elan +2 denuded of its lid.
Autocar trumpeted its arrival in September 1972, stating: ‘The roof is a well-made item with windows in the rear quarters as well as a large panel in the rear, and visibility is in fact slightly better than on the standard coupe.’
Priced at £295 in 1972, not including the donor car, it failed to find favor.
Some sources claim two cars were converted, but Michaels insists it was only one.
Anorak fact Other converters performed roof surgery in later years, Christopher Neil Ltd among them. However, Hexagon’s was the only one based on the +2 as a new car
4. Hispano Alemán Castilla
This curio was rooted in a Lotus Europa, but its history is mired in conjecture.
Which is understandable, given that deciphering the actual and the apocryphal is never easy when Hispano Alemán is concerned.
Making cars in Francoist Spain in the early 1970s wasn’t easy, not least because there were so many conditions, such as the amount of local content used (as good as 100%).
The marque was founded by German émigré Bernhard Heiderich and is perhaps best known for its Seat-engined, Lotus Seven S4-based Mallorca, which was allegedly built with the support of Hethel (even if Caterham owned the rights to the model by then).
The Europa-based Castilla preceded it.
The model appeared at the ’72 Barcelona show, with Seat 1600 Sport running gear.
It was even suggested that Colin Chapman had overseen the car’s makeover, and that it was to be branded as a Lotus-Seat Castilla. It remained unique.
Anorak fact Heiderich considered making Reliant Scimitar SS1s under license
5. D&A Shells Type 23
Like the Eleven before it, several Type 23 sports-racers were turned into fixed-head GTs in later life.
Some were homebuilt, others that bit more professional.
One of the better-known converters, by which we mean ‘less obscure’, was London-based D&A Shells, which was founded by Dennis Pollard and Alan Fowler.
D&A began offering bodyshells for race cars in 1962 and continued to do so until 1970.
It produced closed-cockpit bodies for a variety of sports-racers, such as the Merlyn Mk6, but is best remembered for its Lotus reworking.
You only have to view images from the period to see that the ancestry, for the most part, was fairly obvious, but then the firm began offering its own lightweight, semi-monocoque chassis – and that is where the problems began.
Read through old race programs and the cars are often referred to as simply ‘Lotus 23 GT’, but you have to wonder how much Lotus content remained, if any – especially when they were running BMW M10 four-bangers and suchlike.
D&A Shells also offered complete cars, including one designed by future McLaren design supremo Jo Marquart; it looked similar to a 23, but was dimensionally different.
Anorak fact Just to make life really difficult for future researchers, the firm also offered replica open-top Lotus 23 bodies for a spell
6. GKN 47D
This remarkable machine was based on the Europa’s racing cousin, the Type 47, albeit with a specially widened bodyshell and a lengthened chassis.
‘The differences start with the chassis frame, which, although of the Europa large box-section backbone type, is some 10in longer than standard,’ Autocar reported in 1969.
Powered by a Rover V8 allied to a five-speed ZF ’box, the 47D was intended to act as a mobile testbed while also showcasing the GKN’s various automotive wares.
Formula Three hotshoe Mike Warner demonstrated the car at various race meetings in 1969-’70, and in ’72 it received a displacement hike to 4.4 liters.
That, and a quartet of twin-choke Weber 45DCOE carburetors.
In September 1975, Autocar tested the car and recorded a 0-100mph time of just 11.1 secs.
There is a sidebar to this story, too: in the late 1980s, GKN announced plans to revive the Vanwall marque as a supercar brand.
What’s more, the 47D was to serve as a template, with a new body styled by Simon Saunders.
Renderings appeared in the specialist press, but the car was never built.
Anorak fact The 47D featured largely bespoke suspension, which Autocar described as being ‘pure Formula One’
7. Elan Frua SS Coupe
Switzerland was responsible for two special-bodied models. That said, both had Italian lineage.
First there was a one-off Eleven, styled by the prolific Giovanni Michelotti and bodied by Ghia-Aigle of Lugano.
It broke cover at the ’57 Geneva Salon and subsequently gained a roof, prior to being campaigned in hillclimbs.
Then there was this, the Elan SS Coupe.
It came about after the Swiss marque concessionaire commissioned Pietro Frua to create a new, more luxurious mini-GT Elan variant.
The intention was to manufacture a small production run for the home market.
An S2-based prototype was bodied in aluminum and luxuriously equipped, but nevertheless reputedly weighed only 14LB (6.3KG) more than a regular Elan.
Unveiled at the 1964 International Motor Show in Geneva, it was also displayed at that year’s Salon de l’Automobile in Paris, but there were sadly no takers.
Anorak fact The lone prototype apparently still exists in Japan, but it is reportedly now in derelict condition
8. Dutton Mantis
Think of Dutton kit cars and you will probably envisage skimpy, Lotus Seven-like sports cars or pseudo off-roaders.
For much of the 1970s and ’80s, the marque founded by Tim Dutton-Woolley produced more kit cars than any other manufacturer in Europe, if not the world.
What’s more, it all began with a Lotus-based one-off.
Year zero was 1969 and the construction of the Mantis.
It was based on a Lotus MkIX chassis and featured hand-formed aluminum panels, the design being roughly inspired by contemporary TVRs.
“It seems amazing now, but the Lotus was dirt cheap,” its creator recalls.
“Nobody wanted it. The Coventry Climax engine was replaced by a Sunbeam Alpine unit.
“My cousin, Tony Addison, paid for it and he drove the car around for a couple of years.
“I learned about welding while doing the Mantis – I learned a lot about all sorts of stuff.”
Anorak fact The car survives, albeit restored back to its original Lotus configuration
9. Bitter GT1
Several spin-offs emerged from the Elise GT1 program that eluded success in 1997, including this shadowy device.
Former works Lotus driver Mike Hezemans claimed that the car lacked power and aerodynamic efficiency, so he convinced his father, former European Touring Car Champion Toine, to purchase two Elise GT1 chassis and assorted componentry.
At their workshop in The Netherlands, chief mechanic Hans Willemsen and his crew set about fitting GT2-spec Chrysler V10s and reconfiguring the bodywork.
There was also the issue of homologation: compliancy required at least one road car be completed, and it needed to be produced by a recognized manufacturer.
There was no Lotus involvement, so Hezemans Snr turned to his friend Erich Bitter for help.
The cars were henceforth branded Bitter GT1s.
Anorak fact Two Bitter GT1s entered the 1998 Silverstone 500km, with one retiring just two laps in. They never raced again
10. Bertone Emotion
This long-forgotten supercar concept broke cover at the Geneva Salon in 1991, with Bertone claiming in its press release: ‘The rapport with Lotus is something new for Bertone, despite the fact that both firms have for dozens of years been pacesetters in the conception, design and manufacture of mid-engined sports cars…
‘[The] Emotion sets out to take a second look at the Lotus image and interpret it freely.’
The basis for the Emotion was purportedly a 2.2-liter Esprit of indeterminate age, but the reality is that it wasn’t meant to be a Lotus.
The Torinese styling house was among various outfits to submit proposals to Bugatti for what in time became the EB110.
Its pitch was rejected.
Never one to let things go to waste, Bertone gave the design a few tweaks for this ‘new’ application.
Anorak fact Originally painted in a subdued metallic gray-green hue, the Emotion was later resprayed in a lairy shade of yellow
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