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Re: Type 26 body mold tooling Identifiers

PostPosted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 4:00 pm
by garyeanderson
Some more looking reveals a bit more and thanks to George on the bonnet dimple info. Seems 26/4045 has a pair of dimples on the leading edge of the bonnet and the rear just like in George's photo.
4045 bonnet body 3691.JPG and


Body 4526 is the newest S2 I have from 26/4997, its been well sanded by me so I figured much may be gone as it was done in 1996.
Body4526l Paint strippedJPG.jpg and

On the left side of the shelf you can see the outline of the dymo label imprinted into the gel coat. looking at the body after painting still shows the numbers clearly
Body4526lshelf.jpg and


This is my original body shell from 26/4597 its was a carb fire victim when I bought it, I repaired the foot box with a corrugated cardboard and fiberglass and faked in the top of the wheel arch and drove it a couple hundred miles, in February,1978 this is the Elan that went swimming with the Icebergs during the "blizzard of 78", that took off the nose mid arch forward.
Fire Ice Floods oh my.JPG and

The only only part mildly molested was the left hand portion of the shelf and it appears that there are a pair of dimples (maybe).
body 4246r shelf maybe 2JPG.jpg and


I am getting to think that early on that matched sets were kept together but as time went on and the molds were in constant use that when repairs were needed to the molds of the bonnet and boots that they melded them to be close enough to look good and not be to concerned about fit. If there were 4 set of molds at Bourne then by the time Lotus got them 90 to 100 bodies would have been produced out of each mold. My guess is they needed some work to fix some of the problems that Lotus had been Complaining about the Bourne quality. How many sets of type 26 mold lotus produced to keep up with demand may be more that that...

Here is a list of Production of the type 26 at Lotus from January 1963 to December 1964, this info was deduced from Frank Bertrang's Elan daybook pdf after fixing the dates for the invoice and sorting by date. I believe that its is as close as anything that has been put forth before.

1963
January - 2
February - 5
March - 12
April - 17
May - 28
June - 26
July - 25
August - 24
Sept - 44
October - 43
November - 45
December - 54
1964
January - 31 first Lotus produced bodyshell 3019 (invoiced - 16 January 1964) that I have info on.
February - 52 Some Bourne and some Lotus produced shells being used
March - 44 Probably all Lotus produced in house body's from this point on but I have incomplete info so who knows.
April - 57
May - 78
June - 74
July - 49
August - 73
Sept - 68
October - 106
November - 85
December - 48

Interesting stuff for some

Re: Type 26 body mold tooling Identifiers

PostPosted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 5:55 pm
by cabc26b
Here is the number off the "old" race car - 1965 , type 26, S2

Re: Type 26 body mold tooling Identifiers

PostPosted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 6:56 pm
by garyeanderson
cabc26b wrote:Here is the number off the "old" race car - 1965 , type 26, S2


Looks to be the same mold that Brian's S2 was made from
Image
The photo is from same topic as the link posted in the first post
elan-f14/window-frame-question-t14118-15.html

Re: Type 26 body mold tooling Identifiers

PostPosted: Wed Jul 06, 2011 3:21 am
by Tahoe
piss-ant wrote:
cabc26b wrote:Here is the number off the "old" race car - 1965 , type 26, S2


Looks to be the same mold that Brian's S2 was made from
Image
The photo is from same topic as the link posted in the first post
elan-f14/window-frame-question-t14118-15.html


My car (4050) also has the 22 clearly showing.