Jaguar Opalescent Silver Blue

[phil1800]

My Dec. 67 S3 S/E came in this light blue metallic, which is a contemporary Jaguar color. It is the Ema Peel hue from the later Avengers series. I have not found any mentioning of this color for the S3, only for S4 and haven‘t seen any other pre S4 like Emma‘s and mine. The Lotus Archive confirmed all details on my car, like chassis and engine number and so forth, but only stated ‚blue‘ for color. Can you guys verify that this is the same color as delivered? I haven‘t found any clues on my car, other than it was very yellow at one point in time

[h20hamelan]

Is it close to the 50’s Corvette light blue?

[phil1800]

Dunno, it‘s Jag color….

[Mazzini]

I think by Oct '67 Medici blue had been replaced by Wedgewood blue, but for a fee Lotus would paint a car in a non-standard colour.

[LotusArchives]

The 2016 Elise 250 Special Edition was painted in Classic Opalescent Blue (Lotus paint code C208) which I understand was based on the 'Emma Peel' colour. The paint make up has been revised over the years and there may be some discolouration of the original paint, so it may not be a exact match so you could have a sample mixed to see what you think.

[phil1800]

Very interesting, but if my car (hypothetical) was painted in a special color, would the archive not state something like ‚to customer sample‘ or ‚special paint‘ and not simply ‚blue‘? If cars were painted in non standard colors, or for the Sprint cars in unicolor, was there any mentioning in the Lotus files?

[StressCraxx]

Some cars were shipped in primer so the dealer could paint the car to customer's preference.
The factory records usually indicated the color when sold/invoiced.

[Mazzini]

Very interesting, but if my car (hypothetical) was painted in a special color, would the archive not state something like ‚to customer sample‘ or ‚special paint‘ and not simply ‚blue‘? If cars were painted in non standard colors, or for the Sprint cars in unicolor, was there any mentioning in the Lotus files?

Apparently many of the detailed early factory build records were lost in a flood, the remaining records do not show colours. The records for the later cars (Sprints) seem to have survived.

[trw99]

Andy, Lotus Archives on here, is the factory archivist and thus has access to the remaining Elan records at Hethel.

There was a flood in the old fire engine garage during the late 1970s which destroyed a batch of Sprint records, the Unit number range of which is known.

In addition, over the years records have been mislaid, destroyed or removed. Do bear in mind that during the 1960s car manufacturers were not obliged to keep the detailed records they do now.

What Elan records Andy does have access to now are to some extent cobbled together from various diverse sources within the factory. We are attempting to rebuild gaps in those records, which is why it’s always worth keeping original VIN plates and other paperwork from a cars earliest days.

Colours are recorded for some, but by no means all, Elans. Early cars often have no record of the colour, or a vague idea, such as ‘blue’, ‘red’ and so forth. Special order colours were unlikely to be referred to as such in extant records. Sprint colours were recorded by their paint code and ‘mono’ annotated in their record if they had no Cirrus White under (duo) colour scheme.

Tim

[Mazzini]

Thank you for clearing that up