Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

I've seen FIA race cars advertised for sale with aluminium dashboards but not sure what the alternate dash is on pg 12 of the homologation form. Can I use aluminium? If so, who makes them?

i was told it had to be wood ..

Balsa is wood!

Lay it on top of you aluminium dash.

James

Thinking about flocking it.

holywood3645 wrote:Balsa is wood!

Lay it on top of you aluminium dash.

James

That would fit the regs of the period 261-16.

3mm aluminium, thinnest wood veneer available, black crinkle-coat paint (flocking would be better but will make labelling difficult)..

http://argent.fia.com/web/fia-public.ns ... _261_a.pdf

Greg Cozier wrote:I've seen FIA race cars advertised for sale with aluminium dashboards but not sure what the alternate dash is on pg 12 of the homologation form. Can I use aluminium? If so, who makes them?

Page 12, 1/2/1965, says "As from chassis No. 26/3901 all cars fitted with New Dash Panel and Interior trim... "

This is when the Series 2 was introduced and therefore the "new" dash panel is the S2 full-width dash, as shown in photo #1.

imho FIA 127 is a bit of a dog's breakfast because "someone" was being very clever at the time by homolgating bits and pieces onto the standard road car, rather than treating the 26/r as a separate entity, most probably because they had not made 100 identical 26/r units at the time. I think that I'm correct in saying that the 26/r does not get a mention at all by the FIA, in period.

Thanks all. Ian at Classical dash is going to make me a plywood dashboard with custom instrument layout which I'll prime and crinklecoat when the fitting and wiring is done.

Gents
Just out of interest how much weight will be saved with an aluminium dash? I always thought the wooden dash was particularly light or is it the stiffness?

Regards
Steve

Lotus making 100 of anything identically ? Really ?????? ..ed

twincamman wrote:Lotus making 100 of anything identically ? Really ?????? ..ed

Ed makes an excellent point; when Colin Crapman homologated the Elan for racing, he somehow managed to homologate the road car, produced in thousands (no two the same!), rather than the 26/R, of which Lotus made about a hundred, although nobody can be sure as, even then, there were duplicates and now there are possibly 250 and rising.

being a race car these were modified by the owners for their own preferences before the car turned a wheel in anger.One of my many vees, of which 49 were built, and not one was unmodified by the owners before they were raced ? STREET CARS DIFFER FROM RACE CARS IN A BIG WAY .as racers differ from ordinary people in the same way 1st the driver cares nothing about the provenance of the car --its value..its history ..engineering or design or many time as in the case of Lotus the safety ;;;the true racer only cares that it goes fast and will change and ignore anything to achieve this goal .So to compare a pure race car to a factory production car is futile ?in my time driving if some one won a race with a tool box bolted to the front of the car next event 20 cars would have a box attached to the front of their car and not one would resemble another in size attachment placement or shape . ed

We have just updated our FIA papers for our race Elan's and I know they are going to start clamping down on aluminium dashboards for app.K cars.





2 different styles of dashboards that we have designed/made.