Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Having now watched the vid, it's BABY Elan for me as well!.
Mark

Lotus made various Elan models including 1600, S2, Super Safety, SE, Sprint and a few variations of the +2. I've never seen any piece of Lotus literature or badges with a title starting with the letter B. What an insult! and all perpetrated by Chris Neil. Argh! Infuriating!

Roger

A Duesenberg SJ.

That was when Americans knew how to build a car.

Oh dear, I've come over all funny.

The Cord 810/812 head lamps were in fact modified Stinson landing lights and were operated from the dashboard with a leaver on each side (if see a picture it looks like a window winder next to each door). This is one of the few US cars I admire.

Leo Leentvaar wrote:The Cord 810/812 head lamps were in fact modified Stinson landing lights ....

Can you show us any detail on this supposition? As far as I am aware the swivelling Stinson landing light dropped down, through 90 degrees, out of the under-wing surface; it seems to have had a lot in common with the Porsche 928 lights but I'm struggling to find a Cord/Lotus similarity.

Hi Pete,

I tried to get through my old C&SC magazines to find an article that was published over a decade ago, alas to no avail.
Secondly I am in the middle of a house move and all my car books are packed as well, so I have a hard time at the moment backing up this supposition by hard
facts in written form. I just remember the anorak snippet of information as it appealed to me back then, just like the Cotal electro pneumatic gear change.
To get back on the case, swivelling head lamps on the Elans and any other car I believe the Elan's actuation is pretty unique.

Leo, it's a shame that Ron Hickman is no longer around- we could have asked him!

true Pete, he's sadly missed but to me he's remembered almost on a daily basis. The Elan I am the proud owner of and secondly (given the fact that I am moving house), his Workmate bench!!
Besides I browsed the ADC forums (Auburn, Duesenberg,Cord) to no avail re the provenance of the head lamp assembly.

Some photos in this Stinson link show the landing lights in flush position under the wings- none with them deployed though! I like the idea of picking up mailbags from the ground without having to go to the bother of landing!

http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/models/aircraft/Stinson-Gullwing.html

As Ron used to say "you can do ANYTHING on a Workmate".

Some Cord details here:

http://arizonaccca.org/publications/BattershellCord.pdf

I think we're possibly looking at the same headlights although Ron could have been inspired and gone all the way by fitting the crank and flexible cable as Cord's engineers already guessed that the vaccuum type was not as reliable... in my case so true Headlights are so important at night

Gino Milano
Italy

gino1 wrote: Ron could have been inspired and gone all the way by fitting the crank and flexible cable as Cord's engineers already guessed that the vaccuum type was not as reliable..

Maybe the equilievent of fail-safe?

Failsafe is also a good idea but probably an afterthought only to repair field problems and obvioulsy that had to be a different solution to that of Cord's engineers

Gino
Milano
Italy

elansprint71 wrote:

Leo Leentvaar wrote:The Cord 810/812 head lamps were in fact modified Stinson landing lights ....

Can you show us any detail on this supposition? As far as I am aware the swivelling Stinson landing light dropped down, through 90 degrees, out of the under-wing surface; it seems to have had a lot in common with the Porsche 928 lights but I'm struggling to find a Cord/Lotus similarity.

Found these in the Classic Supercar piece on the Cord 810.

Henceforth my Elan will have "retractable" headlights...not "pop-up". Maybe a new society is called for in the same vein as:

"society to eradicate the use of the term B*by Elan by those who really ought to know better"

Cheers - Richard

Thanks for digging that up Ardee, at least my memory still serves me well