Elan S3

[shadowgun1102]

Hello everyone!
How can I get specifications of how my Elan S3 left the factory, colour, engine specification,etc?
Thanks!

[elanfan1]

Post up your chassis no. and I expect a Tim will be along shortly.

Alternately you can address a PM to ?LotusArchives? on here as that?s Andy Graham the factory archivist.

Cheers

[Gordon Sauer]

I got my letter of provenance from Lotus for my S3 but I will say there is very little able to be identified other than saying that there were only two interior options but unknown which one came on my car and the color was ?not specified? although they were able to confirm the point of sale, Gordon Sauer

[denicholls2]

I believe the amount of information available is based on other variables. I do know that a fair number of dealers painted cars themselves, a practice initiated because of poor paint on the early Type 14. So might they have been ordered unpainted? If I knew I was going to paint a new car, I would not want to do that over an existing job, especially a poor existing job.

Kit cars probably factor into this. I have seen posts of Andy's responses that had a fair amount of detail.

Sport Car World also had information they obtained from Lotus. The file was floating around a few years ago but Lotus may have got wind and "disliked" it and I haven't heard it mentioned in quite awhile. I found the Europa information useful in demonstrating that in 1969 the engine numbers "restarted" confirming that the 1470 engine was replaced by the 1565 before the Type 65 went into production and that my "Federal Type 54" is a reality and not a myth as some have maintained. I believe that file had paint color information on most but not all cars.