Contact made with my +2's original keeper
Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2011 4:39 pm
Can I just commend the elan registry site http://www.elanregistry.org to you all. I posted details of my car there a couple of years ago and then out of the blue I got an email from them passing on a message from the car's original 'owner'. This was particularly interesting as the +2 started life as a Lotus company car and I already knew from research a previous owner had done that it was allocated to a Richard Morley who was Managing Director of Lotus Cars at the time (and for a good few years after). Richard made contact and has proved to be a mine of information about the cars early life, Lotus in the 1970's in general and a very generous correspondent in so many ways.
For example I have always been aware that my VIN number is three after the documented electrical changes that included the change from dynamo to alternator and I always wondered if it was kept for 'staff use' in order to do some long-term reliability testing or evaluation. Richard not only confirms this but told me that he had 'my' car and Tony Rudd (engineering Director at the time) had another of the first three new spec cars for the same reason. Even more interesting Richard tells me that though 'our' car left the production line with a 4-speed 'box during his 12 monthswith the car it was fitted with two different 5-speed 'boxes for evaluation and testing. Indeed he went on a trip to Portugal with a 5-speeder fitted on one occasion. The 5 speed variant of the S130 was released at the Earls Court MNotor show in the autumn of 1972 and my +2 (GAH 734K) was built in May 72 and registered on 12th June, so they were still prototype testing two different designs just weeks before launch. No wonder early Lotus owners thought they were always finishing the product development process. It was also'sold' into the comapny with both steel and alloy wheels but the alloys were only put on on high days and holidays and the cars were always sold on on steel wheels (which mine still has). What is the betting those alloys got sold as new to some other new owner (or with another company car as a charge against the business?!
Even more exciting for me was to hear that while Richard was running the car it was 'borrowed back' by the PR Department for a photoshoot and subsequently appeared on the front of the 1972 Group Lotus company accounts. I was immediatetly on ebay looking for a copy (the Lotus company archive doesn't have a set) but no joy. Imagine my joy when my new friend Richard came up with his copy. Fantastic. Even more exciting, when I saw the image I recognised it as it appears in several of the Elan books. We have arranged to meet up later in the year and I hope Richard will get to drive the car again, 39 years after his last encounter. So there it is I always knew my car was special, now EVERYONE knows and why.
Just to close the circle Andy Graham the Lotus archivist had no details of my car nor of one two numbers away from it. This he now realises is because their data comes from sales delivery records and as the car was retained and later sold second hand no data entered teh system. He now has the details of my car and deduces from Richard's information that the other car with no details (7205755 if anyone has it) was the car Tony Rudd had at the same time.
Roy
For example I have always been aware that my VIN number is three after the documented electrical changes that included the change from dynamo to alternator and I always wondered if it was kept for 'staff use' in order to do some long-term reliability testing or evaluation. Richard not only confirms this but told me that he had 'my' car and Tony Rudd (engineering Director at the time) had another of the first three new spec cars for the same reason. Even more interesting Richard tells me that though 'our' car left the production line with a 4-speed 'box during his 12 monthswith the car it was fitted with two different 5-speed 'boxes for evaluation and testing. Indeed he went on a trip to Portugal with a 5-speeder fitted on one occasion. The 5 speed variant of the S130 was released at the Earls Court MNotor show in the autumn of 1972 and my +2 (GAH 734K) was built in May 72 and registered on 12th June, so they were still prototype testing two different designs just weeks before launch. No wonder early Lotus owners thought they were always finishing the product development process. It was also'sold' into the comapny with both steel and alloy wheels but the alloys were only put on on high days and holidays and the cars were always sold on on steel wheels (which mine still has). What is the betting those alloys got sold as new to some other new owner (or with another company car as a charge against the business?!
Even more exciting for me was to hear that while Richard was running the car it was 'borrowed back' by the PR Department for a photoshoot and subsequently appeared on the front of the 1972 Group Lotus company accounts. I was immediatetly on ebay looking for a copy (the Lotus company archive doesn't have a set) but no joy. Imagine my joy when my new friend Richard came up with his copy. Fantastic. Even more exciting, when I saw the image I recognised it as it appears in several of the Elan books. We have arranged to meet up later in the year and I hope Richard will get to drive the car again, 39 years after his last encounter. So there it is I always knew my car was special, now EVERYONE knows and why.
Just to close the circle Andy Graham the Lotus archivist had no details of my car nor of one two numbers away from it. This he now realises is because their data comes from sales delivery records and as the car was retained and later sold second hand no data entered teh system. He now has the details of my car and deduces from Richard's information that the other car with no details (7205755 if anyone has it) was the car Tony Rudd had at the same time.
Roy