Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Posted: **Mon Jan 30, 2012 12:34 am**

I am an avid reader of our local New Zealand Classic car magazine, and in one issue, Eoin Young (a well respected and informed writer on many things in motorsport) gave a spiel on the origins of the Lotus name. To quote:

"MG tuner Don Moore told me how he and Chapman used to race against each other. They both had to sell their cars at seasons end to finance a new car for the following year, and both were auctioned in the same sale. Don's car sold but Colins didn't, and Don told me the Austin special sat there with a label hanging on it to indicate it hadn't sold. The abbreviation for Car Unsold was "Lot/Us"."

Is this true, or a myth :shock:

?

I always thought the Lotus name had come from Colin's wife Hazel, and she was inspired by Homers Odyssey and the "Lotus Eaters". Lotus eaters forgot about time and everything else when eating lotus flowers, (as we do when working on our beloved Lotus cars).

Posted: **Mon Jan 30, 2012 12:47 am**

Some earlier threads:

free-parking-f19/origin-the-name-lotus-part-t24063.html

elan-archive-f16/origin-the-name-lotus-t2459.html

Cheers - Richard

Posted: **Mon Jan 30, 2012 5:51 am**

I read that recently too Skittle but as it came from good old Eoin took it with a large grain of salt.
What most amazed me was that I hadn't read it before as Young must be the Worlds master at regurgitating the same old stories in numerous publications past and present.

Lost count of the number of times I've read about him becoming Bruce McLaren's secretary, or why the car was painted green etc. etc.
His books tend to be a re-telling of all the old anecdotes mixed up with readily available race histories.

Helluva pity as he writes with an engaging style, knew all the greats, and most importantly, ( and a lot more than I can say.....), was there.

Hopefully one day we'll get a slightly more serious, tell all, book out of him.

Cheers
Ralph.