Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Here's my +2s

Spyder Zetec +2

Heres a couple from an outing in the Welsh Mountains earlier this year.



Chris.

Almost finished, colour is tartan red.

Lovely, Chris. Is that Lagoon Blue, or . . ?

Randy

daverubberduck wrote:Almost finished, colour is tartan red.

Tartan Red looks great, Dave. Where is that colour from?

And I see you've painted the wheel wells in body colour. Will they stay that way, or will you apply some sort of black/undercoating, etc.?? Or perhaps you've already applied the "rubber" paint and have colour-painted on top?? Trying to decide how to handle mine . . .

Thanks,

Randy

carrierdave wrote:Here's my +2s

Dave, what color yellow is that? Looks good on your car.

tartan red,that's food for thought?

daverubberduck wrote:Almost finished, colour is tartan red

Is it tartan red?......thought it was carnival red........

It's camel racing yellow, obviously a Lotus colour but not period. My car is a 69 built, 1970 registered car. 2054 chassis number - would be interesting to know how close the other H plates are to this number?

Happy new year to you all, and hope to see you all on the road in 2015.
Cheers
Dave

Lovely, Chris. Is that Lagoon Blue, or . . ?

Randy

Hi Randy,

It is actually an MG colour, Trophy Blue. Used on the MGF and some of the later MG Z series cars.

Chris.

[quote="carrierdave"]It's camel racing yellow, obviously a Lotus colour but not period. My car is a 69 built, 1970 registered car. 2054 chassis number - would be interesting to know how close the other H plates are to this number?

Happy new year to you all, and hope to see you all on the road in 2015.
Cheers
Dave[/quote]

Dave, from my records (which are not exhaustive!) the earliest H reg car is 50/1487; the last is 7004080203L. Several of the later cars on the old numbering system are on J plates.

Tim

Hi Randy
Sorry for the delay in replying. Tartan red is not a Lotus colour, Carnival red is the colour Lotus used, although my car was originally Bahama Yellow, then green, then blue, then red which is the colour when I bought it. Tartan red, though not a Lotus colour, is typical on British sports cars of the 60s such as MGBs and Austin Healeys. It is a bit darker, or more scarlet than carnival red, more like the colour used on Ferraris. Regarding the wheel arches, they are painted with stone chip and then painted red over the top. Actually the stone chip was applied after the car was painted, so underneath the car is paint/stone chip/paint. Painting red over the stone chip was an afterthought. One thing to note about the colour is that in sunshine the camera seems to distort it and make it look pink. Mind you I have a cheap camera

The restoration is being done at Alders Classics in Long Stratton, UK. They are doing a brilliant job.
cheers
Dave

Thanks so much for the info, Dave. I do love the deeper red. The Lotus Carnival Red is a little light and makes me nervous about selecting it.

For the inevitable questions: how did you come to choose a non-Lotus colour, and how did you reach your decision to use a colour other than the original (my 1970 car is Bahama Yellow and I, too, don't want to repaint it that)?

Further, I do like the wheel wells painted body colour. My car had primer, then bitumen undercoating, then body colour paint in the wheel wells, from factory. Later, presumably, the wheel wells were undercoated again to cover up chipped paint.

Randy

Hi Randy
I'm glad you like the colour.

When I bought the car it was red and I was thinking of changing the colour. Then I discovered errors on the registration document (V5 in the UK) in both the chassis number and the engine number and I was really concerned about it (yes I know I should have checked them before buying). I had already started on the restoration and needed to make a decision about colour so stuck with red because I was worried about changing 3 details on the V5. In the end I sorted out the errors with the help of Lotus archives.

Why did I go for a non Lotus colour? I don't know, the paint guy suggested it and it sounded like a good idea. It's so difficult choosing car colours. I have collected photos of +2s from the internet just to compare colours, have pics of well over 100 cars. I have a second project which is just a bunch of bits at the moment, I often think about colours for it, change my mind every week. This week I'm thinking about Medici Blue.
Dave