Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

72 was taken from the log book, where would the unit number be or do you mean the body number. first registered may 63

PM sent.

Tim

Trailer at the ready. Off to pick up the old girl tomorrow morning, will post some pics on Sunday.

By the way I have been informed that it is in fact Unit No 26/0052.

Hi, I too am getting quite excited looking at the pictures. I have heard more than a couple of Elan folks say that there were some Elans that left the factory with black covered dashboards. I believe that the glove box door was optional on S1 cars. I have been digging into details like this since I bought my own early S1. As for the steering wheel comment could someone please explain to me what would be the difference between this very early wood wheel and the very similar looking wood wheel that came on my early S3 DHC? I have another copy of what I think is the same wheel on my wall now, hoping to fit it to my S1 and really would like to understand the detail differences. (I am looking for hub annd horn parts if anyone has them, please) Back to this car; based on the rust visible I think it very likely that the chassis will be seriously rusted and also the body reinforcements molded into the rockers will be rusted out also. This car is so early, rare and original that I would certainly want to see it restored with the original body, so the cost of restoration just went up in my mind. I think 50,000 pounds PLUS is a realistic estimate to restore this car, and I hope that whoever restores it will do a very sympathetic restoration job keeping ALL of the original features. I suspect this car may have a body number and a chassis number but I would expect to have NO unit number (someone please correct me if I am wrong). Regarding the head casting, looking very closely it appears it does have the extra bosses between the valve cover side (near the plugs) and it has the large blocks of aluminum between the first two intake ports and the valve cover (not webs) which I think (correct me if I am wrong) makes it a very early head. My sources tell me that there were two suppliers making head castings in parallel in the early years with and without those bosses near the plugs. The bosses there went out of production fairly early, making this an early head. At all times there were two sources for head castings. My suspicion is that this is a very early sand cast head. I would love to know the block number, head numbers (off the back of the casting against the firewall/scuttle, and some more detailed pictures of the head casting especially down in the area of the spark plugs.

knockoffnut wrote:I would expect to have NO unit number

As far as I know all cars had a unit number, but there was no unit number 26/0052; they jumped from 0048 to 3049

There's more information (also relating to the steering wheel) here: http://www.type26register.com/spec_changes.html

Paddy

Check on the chassis near where the drivers side engine mount connects to the chassis, as I've had a number of S1's and all have had a chassis number stamped on the chassis rail. if there is a number stamped that can be correlated with relevant body and unit number. Is there a Bourne plate fixed to the engine bay scuttle in front of the driver?

Have you checked the engine number?

Regards

V

Just got back, long day on a 600 mile round trip