Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Art, we're getting away from the topic, but I'll do one more post for Phil. Phil got to know my voice over the phone, since Ohio is too far away to be a frequent visitor.

We raced my Lotus 20/22 at Lime Rock in 2008 and we traveled via Millerton. I stopped at the golf driving range to get a photo of the old Lotus building. It's built up a lot more now than it was in 1975. We proceeded to the Beekman Arms for lunch, sat outside with our golden Lizzie under the table. I did peek inside and it all looked the same as our previous visits when we stayed the night. Chelsea Clinton has nothing on our Liz. The staff brought her treats and a bowl of water to keep her visit pleasant. She left a nice tip.

Roger

John

My S1 Elan is also in the Lotus accounts as having been shipped to Duchess Autos however it never left the UK. I was under the impression this was a Lotus scam to prevent having to pay tax on the car.

regards

Andy

Andy

I do not believe this would necessarily have been the case. There is a danger that, because we know there was some allegedly fishy accounting going on at Lotus in the 60s, all unexplained documentation becomes 'suspect'. The fact is no regard for the future history of our cars was given back then and only cursory records were required to be kept.

Quite a number of Federal Elans ended up staying in the UK. It may well have been that yours was a cancelled order and someone wanted their Elan immediately; yours was the one they got offered. Whether that was before the LHD steering etc was fitted or after, we cannot know.

Tim

Sort of getting back to the original post, when I bought my Elan, it had been a California car and still had the original title. However, the car had been off the road for nearly 20 years and was residing in Michigan. The PO had the original title from when he purchased the car as a pile of parts, but had never had the car re-registered during his ownership.

When I brought the car back to California, I proceeded to register the car in my name. Thinking it would be simple, because I had the California title, I was informed that the state drops their records after 8 years if there is no activity, license wise. The lack of current records proved to be no problem in my registering.

My biggest mistake was not making a copy of the original title as a point of tracking the history of the car. Oh well........ live and learn.

Rob Walker
26-4889

Rob

Please PM me as I have details on your car from the factory sales sheet, a scan of which I can let you have. It was delivered to British Motor Car Distributors on 15th July 1965.

Tim

Andy,

There were always schemes in the US, advertised in magazines that you would buy your car in the US, then pick it up at the factory and vacation in Merry Ole, then have it shipped home. I wonder if your car could have been one of those, but maybe something happened while on vacation and the car was consequently not shipped home. There has to be at least one person who bought an Elan sight unseen, then found it was not their cup of tea.

Roger