Lotus trivia

[coldplugs]

For no reason other than my being bored at the moment, some useless Lotus trivia....

The oldest known Lotus is the Mark 2, built in 1949-50. Only one was made - it looks sort of like across between a Lotus 7 and an Oliver tractor. It was used in a movie named “Brothers in Law” in 1957, the last copy of which probably vanished long ago. The car is currently owned by a fellow in England who is a major Berkeley enthusiast as well as a Lotus nut.

There was no Lotus Mark 5.

C Chapman gave his cars a “Mark” number up to the Mark 10, although the 7 seemed to avoid using it and was often called the “Seven”. When he hit 11, he decided to officially change and he simply called the car the “Eleven” - spelled out, no numerals. Then he switched to “Type” numbers - e.g. the early Elan was the Type 26, the Elan Coupe was the type 36, and so on.

The Type numbers were pretty consistent, although several aberrations exist. The Europa TwinCam was the Type 74, but Lotus also built a couple of Formula 2 cars they called Type 74. There are a few skipped numbers - there's no 103 for instance.

The Elise is the Type 111.

 

[Steve]

How did you remember all this stuff John? You ought to write a book on old cars and racing them.......

 

[sammyb]

I always like to explain when people ask me how I learned so much useless car trivia that information of any type simply snowballs. You start with a little knowledge, then since we retain knowledge faster when there's a relationship to already learned knowledge, the trivia simply snowballs.

Some stuff we retain because it's important to us -- like TR3s have significant changes after TS60,000. I've had pre and post 60,0000 cars, and there are huge differences. I've owned a bunch of Corvettes, so it's easy to start filling the holes of how to identify the year of the car by otherwise subtle styling changes.

Then there's the true tree of knowledge way of creating trivia relationships. People ask me how I know that the '55 Chevy 265 V8 didn't have an oil filter. Easy -- I know that '55 was the first year of the V8 for Chevy, which was easy to remember because everyone goes nuts over 55-57 Chevys (incidently, the '55 was also the first year of the V8 for Packard, too -- and I had a '55 Packard Patrician.)

So once I knew the '55 piece, it was simple to retain the knowledge about the lack of an oil filter when someone told me that otherwise useless piece of information.


I wrote a column on this all once. I'll look and see if I can find it and post it.

 

[coldplugs]

True - a lot has to do with interest in a topic. I grew up in a Chevy family & for years spent most afternoons and part of Saturday in my father's parts department. I can still remember the GM "Group" numbers for shift knobs, engine mounts, and a bunch of other parts but I have my current business phone number on a Post-it stuck to my monitor.

Sammy's right about the '55 oil filter - it was sold as an accessory and even then wasn't a full-flow system as is common today . This wasn't unusual back then, in the days of non-detergent oils - I think the earlier sixes were the same in that respect. Oil bypass kits were popular for a while for the sixes - these were external oil lines that bypassed the internal drillings when they clogged up - probably because of having no oil filter. I don't think the '55 had a fuel filter either apart from the little bronze colored thing in the carb itself.

(To nitpick - the '55 265ci engine wasn't Chevrolet's first production V8. Earlier they introduced a 288ci OHV V8 as a 1918 "Series D". and sold about 6300 of them before constant problems caused them to drop it from the product line. I guess it scared 'em so bad they waited 35 years to try again.)

More fascinating Chevy trivia (for the Lotus forum...) - back then Chevy accessories had six digit part numbers, most starting with "985". You never know when this knowledge will prove valuable....

 

[Roger]

The reason the Seven was just plain Seven, was that it came after the Eleven. In fact the first Seven I saw, in 1957, had a lot of Eleven about it. Climax engine, de Dion rear, etc. Ted Lewis drove it at Brunton hillclimb, and when I first saw it I thought it was a gone-wrong VI special.
The earliest I remember was the Mk 2 - my father raced against it at Silversotne in 1951.
103 wasn't really skipped - it was a Formula 1 design that wasn't produced.

 

[coldplugs]

[ QUOTE ]
...the first Seven I saw, in 1957, had a lot of Eleven about it. Climax engine, de Dion rear, etc. Ted Lewis drove it at Brunton hillclimb, and when I first saw it I thought it was a gone-wrong VI special.
The earliest I remember was the Mk 2 - my father raced against it at Silversotne in 1951....

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes - the Seven showed up about a year after the Eleven, I think, so I'm sure you're right. The car you saw in 1957 would have been one of the aluminum nose cars - I knew they had the front suspension from the "wishbone" Elevens but didn't know that any had a de Dion rear. I thought they were pretty much copies of the club racing Eleven.

It's hard for me to imagine the Lotus 2 on a race course but I've read about its outstanding performance at Silverstone. I always figured it was a trials car.

Interesting stuff.

 

[sammyb]

[ QUOTE ]

It's hard for me to imagine the Lotus 2 on a race course but I've read about its outstanding performance at Silverstone. I always figured it was a trials car.


[/ QUOTE ]

It does look like a trials car, but I suppose most of the British sports cars of the era looked like trials cars. It's interesting how the British cars were very rugged looking, while the French and Germans were so much more streamlined...of course neither looked like they could soak up the ruts of an airport course like the British could.

 

[Roger]

Like many specials of that era, Lotus 2 was intended to be multi-function trials or circuit. There wasn't a lot of racing going on, there were many more trials. Remember we're talking of a time of post-war austerity, rationing, and so on.
The famous race at Silverstone for Lotus Mk2 was in 1950 against a T37 Bugatti - still a very competitive sports car even then.

I slipped up in my earlier post - it was of course the Mk3 750 that my father raced in '51.

 

[coldplugs]

[ QUOTE ]
Like many specials of that era, Lotus 2 was intended to be multi-function trials or circuit. ...

[/ QUOTE ]

Re that era, I'm sure you're familiar with the Buckler cars that seemed (to me, at least) to have been developed using many of the same ideas as Lotus. Lotus eventually prospered - if that's the right term - whereas Buckler fell by the wayside.

Any opinions on this - luck? Funding? Maybe ACBC was a better marketeer than Derek Buckler? Lotus just created better cars?

I suppose it was some of each but am wondering if someone closer to all this than I was knows of some "fatal flaw" in the Buckler approach.

(Buckler info at www.bucklercars.com for anyone interested)

 

[Roger]

By odd coincidence, my father worked for Derek Buckler for a few months in 1959 / 60 or thereabouts. They were starting work on the Backbone about then. He got a better job offer and went to work for SAAB.
Bucklers never created the same following aomng enthusiasts as Lotus. Chapman won (easily!) the first championship he entered, the 750MC Goodacre trophy, and never looked back. If the old adage "Nothing succeeds like success" is true, that probably explains a lot. Not to say that all the Lotus customer cars had the same success, but they certainly were the winningest in just about every form of competition they entered - like the Le Mans class wins in the 50s and 60s, being the first to win 50 F1 GPs.
I guess they built better cars!

 

[DrEntropy]

Roger wrote:

[ QUOTE ]
...being the first to win 50 F1 GPs.

[/ QUOTE ]

and in virtually NO time compared with Ferrari's competition history. Enzo musta been fumin' as Emmo crossed the finish line that day! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/jester.gif