Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Elan +2 1973 - what rear light cluster did Lotus use? I do not immediately recognise them. Some questions please:

The reversing light is a festoon bulb - is anyone using these for real? Are they effective in any way?

Did any +2 have rear fog lights (maybe for US/EU export), and if so, how were they incorporated?

Has anyone made an aftermarket conversion to incorporate stop/tail, indicator, reverse and fog into one unit that can be made to fit the rear body profile?

Thanks
Hal

Hal

This should be your rear light https://www.holden.co.uk/p/lucas_l807_t ... lamp_lotus

I have these on my Sprint and have replaced the festoon reversing lamp bulbs with LED equivalents. It's an improvement but not much!!

All the usuals sell these lamps. They are similar to Series 2 and Series 3 E type Jaguar rear lights except they don't have the reversing lamps.

HTH

Thanks Mike, yes those are the lights.

It is a pity that the lights used a festoon instead of a BA15 for the reverse as I could have just changed this to be a fog lamp. Apart from very few cars I have had, I have found that using hazards is better for reversing!

I really want to have rear foglights though. I wonder how it might be if I used two surface mounted Lucas lamps - their smaller 72mm diameter ones inbetween the number plate and light clusters. The car is already red, so they should not look too stark.

If you want rear fog lights and are prepared to use your hazards for reversing (has your +2 got hazards?)

How about changing the lenses to the Jaguar lens which has a red area where your reversing light is? That way you don't have to make more holes in the back of the car and you just have to do a bit of rewiring.

https://www.holden.co.uk/p/lucas_l807_5 ... _lens_only

Just a thought about dim reversing lights - are the festoon bulbs 21 w? They should be.

I think festoon bulbs are 5W or 10W

I do not know how your legal requirements are (not even in my country), but I would supose that a red reversing light would not comply. But I do know that one light is sufficient, and that also applies to the rear fog lamp.
So, why not use one lamp (say right one) with the white surface for the reversing light, and one lamp (right one, Jaguar version) with as a rear fog lamp ?
Of course, that would require a new wire for the fog lamp, but if you use a "high power" LED festoon bulb, that should be enough for reversing.

Festoon bulbs are available as 21 w for reversing lamps, when they are used in interior lamps they are lower wattage.

Having looked at a Jaguar E type rear lamp lens my suggestion will not work because the colour of the area over where the Lotus has a clear lens is actually orange and red to match the rest of the lens. The picture on the Holden website may be a bit misleading, apologies if I got your hopes up!! If you want to do it it would be worth checking with Holden what colour that patch actually is.

The LED Festoons in the reversing lamps of my S4 are plenty bright enough. Bought from Classic car LEDs as per discussion in other thread. Whilst no provision for fog lights the additional brightness of the red LED bulbs in the rear lamps is an improvement over the original filament bulbs.

Thanks everyone!

Mike, I too looked at the Jaguar lens and agree, the orange might be in 'the wrong place' besides, not sure how a bright bulb behind would look. Without a dedicated lens, the brightness might bleed across the whole lens.

I looked at the idea of a single fog light using a 21W festoon with a red film inside the reversing lens. Unfortunately I could not find a red LED festoon of 21W equivalent, but no matter, I can leave this one as an incandescent bulb and just run a 1mm2 wire to this point alongside the 0.5mm2 wires for the others. This is what I will do, and if it does not work, then remove the red film so the lens can revert to reversing lights and go to plan B: dedicated surface mounted fog lights.

i changed the rhs festoon for a red LED festoon and wired separately. I still have the white lens cover and to me it looks fine. I have some red film that can fitted inside the lens if necessary. The lhs is a white LED festoon. both are quite bright, red one equivalent to the stop lamp.. I have changed the stop/tail and indicator bulbs also. Wiring is a single wire and bullet is swapped by the light, easily reversible. all from classiccarled.. btw the led festoons are slightly shorter than the original, the copper fittings are just bent inward a little.
Hope this helps..
Adrian

I have recently fitted an FIA LED rain light to the parcel shelf in my Elan to comply with the introduction of this requirement for all race cars in Australia. I have wired this with a changeover switch in the boot ( as it takes supply from the rear lights) so it comes on as a high level central brake light when on the road and so it can be switched on with the tail lights as a rain light when on the track.

A similar thing could be done to set it up as a rear fog light rather than a track rain light depending on local regulations around fog light positioning and rating. There are a number of styles of FIA rain light available from small round ones to large square ones. I used the smallest square one I could find to fit so it did not obstruct the rear view mirror line of sight.

cheers
Rohan

rgh0 wrote:I have recently fitted an FIA LED rain light to the parcel shelf in my Elan to comply with the introduction of this requirement for all race cars in Australia. ...

I have one waiting on my shelf for exactly these purposes, especially for the brake light among trundling SUVs.

John

lotusfan wrote:
Having looked at a Jaguar E type rear lamp lens my suggestion will not work because the colour of the area over where the Lotus has a clear lens is actually orange and red to match the rest of the lens. The picture on the Holden website may be a bit misleading, apologies if I got your hopes up!! If you want to do it it would be worth checking with Holden what colour that patch actually is.

Hal

I just happened to have a Jaguar rear lens and decided to do a comparison with the Elan lens. Attached are two photos showing the Jaguar lens and the Elan lens. The bulb in both cases is an LED. No prizes for guessing which is which!!!

What wattage equivalent is the bulb behind the Jaguar lens, Mike? I would have expected a lot more from a 21W - or I should say, I will hope for more as I did find a supplier here who has 21W festoon LEDs. I have ordered a red that I will try on the LH light with some red film behind the reverse light lens.