Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

recently on Facebook, someone posted a screen shot of a booklet of lotus dealers in USA in the 1970's , is there such a bit of information for the 1960's ? Also there was a lotus distributor prior to Dutchess Auto as well


Jeffrey Vogel

Jeffrey, no, I have never seen a 1960s produced dealer list from the factory. I believe the first official one they printed was the brown 1974 version you likely refer to.

From my own research I have produced this non-exhaustive list, attached below. Edit: Well, I tried to but the forum doesn't like .xlt or .ods files; Dropbox and One Drive fail too. Any ideas?

I'd be happy to hear from anyone who can fill in any blanks!

Tim

Tim, take a picture of it and post it as a jpg.

Far too much info on it, Greg. It just would not reproduce well enough.

Tim

trw99 wrote:Jeffrey, no, I have never seen a 1960s produced dealer list from the factory. I believe the first official one they printed was the brown 1974 version you likely refer to.

From my own research I have produced this non-exhaustive list, attached below. Edit: Well, I tried to but the forum doesn't like .xlt or .ods files; Dropbox and One Drive fail too. Any ideas?

I'd be happy to hear from anyone who can fill in any blanks!

Tim

perhaps you could send it by email to me and I can work up s forum friendly version ?

If all else fails, I can create a page for it on my website and host it there. The forum will take that link without issue.

-John

I sent a letter to Lotus in 1966 or 7 about buying an Elan kit. I received a reply that the Elan was only available fully assembled in the US and included a sheet on the Seven kits and I believe Lotus dealers. I was surprised that Continental Sports cars in Columbus was not on the list. I have the contents of that reply in my file of Lotus literature and I'll try to dig it out over the weekend and scan it.

Sy Kabak distributed Lotus cars in New York previous to Dutchess, but mostly race cars. There is a good discussion about his history on the Simple Sevens web site, but from memory, he was finished before the Elan was introduced. And there are no records of cars sold, as I'd hoped to find info on my Twenty which was bought by Team Rosebud in Texas.

Roger

I believe Team Rosebud was the team that Innes Ireland drove for in the 60's. I think it was a Ferrari he drove for them.

Phil Harrison is kindly converting the spreadsheet into pdf, so we can get it posted soon.

Please bear in mind this is a work in progress. I have gathered some raw data on a few of the dealers but recognise there is much more to do. The list is worldwide, so covers North America, Europe, UK and RoW.

Tim

One of the other dealers/importers was Bob Challman - Manhattan Beach Imported Cars, Manhattan Beach, CA. He took over from Jay Chamberlain when Jay ran into financial difficulties in the early '60s. He literally saved a batch of Elites from the dock in Long Beach that shipping had not been paid. Most of the '60's ads you see in the old Road and Track and Car and Driver were Bob's artwork and marketing.

trw99 wrote:Phil Harrison is kindly converting the spreadsheet into pdf, so we can get it posted soon.

Please bear in mind this is a work in progress. I have gathered some raw data on a few of the dealers but recognise there is much more to do. The list is worldwide, so covers North America, Europe, UK and RoW.

Tim

This is Tim's list:

Nice work! Thanks Phil and Tim.

Jeff, I also have this list from 1967 of the 5 importers & the dealers under Lotus East:

Take the 200 number with a pinch of salt!

Time capsule.....

wow what period is that from ? never heard of lotus dealer in NYC itself JV