Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

terryp wrote:Hasn't anyone a friend who works for the DVLA who can "press the button" and find out exactly?

Any DVLA search for a Lotus designated 'Elan +2' would almost certainly miss a lot of cars registered as above or simply as Elans, or 130S, or whatever the DVLA or PO decided back in 1975 or thereabouts.
...

Are DVLA records available ?

I contacted the DVLA many years go when I first bought DWP984J for details.

They replied they had contacted me (they meant the last REGISTERED owner) when the system was changing over, and having recieved no reply, the records were not transferred to the new system, and were consequently not available.

I also traced the original dealer to be Foley Park Motors in Kidderminster, but they are long since gone out of business

There is one way we could find out something , there is a search tool on the DVLA web site that if you put in the registration No and the make , you can check when it was last taxed. All we need are all the registration numbers!

Sorry you couldn't find out the owners Sean, very frustrating.

They actually do a good service, I asked for my car a while back paid my ?5 and they sent me a copy of every piece of paper ever sent to them on the car, about 8mm thick! (It has had 11 owners and been exported to France before , re-imported , number changed etc etc)

Going back to the original question...

So 1200 surviving cars sounds like a reasonable number?

Best

Carlos

terryp wrote:They actually do a good service, I asked for my car a while back paid my ?5 and they sent me a copy of every piece of paper ever sent to them on the car, about 8mm thick!

That sounds good, I'll write the DVLA a nice letter, and enclose the few Euros

I'll let you know how I got on......

Sean
There's a form you can download "V888"
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/Ow ... DG_4022067

Best of Luck

Terry

terryp wrote:Sean
There's a form you can download "V888"

Thanks for that, I got it

Hello
I've now think there may be 1000's of cars not hundreds and not 1200 as wikipedia says.

I started of in France believing we had 10 to 12 cars here, this became 25 cars , then 40 cars , then 50 cars , now I firmly beleive we have around 70 cars!
(The 70 divided into 31 on our register, 19 known, approx (?) 20 lost and secretly stashed in barns, very common here!)

So a total flyer but of the 5228 produced , I reckon 3500 left!

Terry

This brings up an interesting point. Of X cars produced, how many are legal for the road, how many are "under restoration", and how many are garage residents?

Last weekend I was talking with Mike Ostrov, who has the register of Lotus Elites. Of around 1000 produced, he knows of over 700.

I was bemoaning the fact that so few Elan owners were ordering the newly introduced 5-speed upgrade whereas Mike had made a production run of 20 5-speed T-9 conversions for the Elite or roughly 3% of those existing. He pointed out the effective percentage was much greater, since so few of the 700 were actually roadable instead of being pretty displays of automotive technology. He is thinking of making a "roadworthy" classification, a "under restoration" classification, and a "other" to see just how many roadable cars there are.

+2s were produced in a low enough volume to possibly make this possible. Regular Elans maybe less so. Interesting question though. I wonder what the situation will be like in another, say, 10 or 20 years.

David
1968 36/7988

Well here's another one , mine is sort of under restoration-- when I have time it will be back on the road!

I have a 72 +2S 130/5

Mine is a 1970 plus 2,reg no KXC 873 H,curently fully built but im building up a spyder chassis to update her a little.upgrades so far are a 5speed gearbox,3.54 diff.soon to be fitted with an Quaife ATB.As funds allow solid drive shafts,then the engine bassed on a 711m block.