Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Jim,
Your Sprint is obviously a fake, it's not even painted correctly, perhaps Lotus ran out of white that day?

Spyder fan wrote:Jim,
Your Sprint is obviously a fake, it's not even painted correctly, perhaps Lotus ran out of white that day?

Just spilt my coffee!!

For goodness sake don't encourage him, Phil!

Jim, have a look at this thread: lotus-elan-f19/bit-lip-t17272.html

Tim

As my S4 doesn't have a lip on it's perfectly smooth bottom at the back I made sure there was a lip on the front.

Why is there a big ugly bolt showing on the rear valance on all the Elans I see apart from mine?


nice lip


look no bolt

Knowing Jim (as I do) I dread to think what sort of posts he may make regarding lips, flaps and flanges.........

Spyder fan wrote:
Why is there a big ugly bolt showing on the rear valance on all the Elans I see

Fuel tank mount

robertverhey wrote:

Spyder fan wrote:
Why is there a big ugly bolt showing on the rear valance on all the Elans I see

Fuel tank mount

Mine must be glued in place then?

Tim, yes it was that thread I had in mind and the confusion of why and when. Assuming the auction Sprint is original this points to a changeover around late August/early September `72. It`s hard to believe that the moulds were changed so close to the end of production but maybe the end wasn`t in sight then. Maybe there were stocks of shells from different sources. Maybe they decided to grind off the offending item. Maybe spiderman will stop trying to convince everyone his car is superior. Maybe pigs will fly.

Pete, I won`t be taking your bait what with my sophisticated sense of propriety.
Jim

I suspect that Alan's car is superior in terms of power and handling etc but that isn't the be all and end all. I like a lot of originality on my cars but had a Spyder chassis on my first sprint - before I was educated. Current Sprint has the prototype 6 speed box in it - very difficult to detect its presence but it isn't original or necessarily 'superior'.

I reckon Mr Chapman would have highly approved of Alan's car and would have fitted a 6 speed box had one been available at the time. What is better is 'in the eye of the beholder' and we are all different.

Jim, I concluded that there were (at least) two moulds in use during Sprint production. The majority of Sprints had the lip. Some Sprints had no lip straight from the factory. Replacement bodywork (for repairing rear-end shunts etc) had no lip.

I have just checked out my Sprint records and know of at least 12 other extant Lagoon blue mono cars, one or two with the gold decals, most though are stripe-less.

Tim