Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

heres the list I have......it was a download but I can remember where from

Wow that is some resource! Is there a similar document out there for the baby Elans?

theelanman wrote:heres the list I have......it was a download but I can remember where from

It was apparently a free download from sportscar world website You aswered my question here:

lotuselan-plus2-f51/car-history-pss-360h-t31144.html#p208657

draenog wrote:

theelanman wrote:heres the list I have......it was a download but I can remember where from

It was apparently a free download from sportscar world website You aswered my question here:

lotuselan-plus2-f51/car-history-pss-360h-t31144.html#p208657

I knew I knew I knew its location....I now know nothing

Hi all

A great list but my car is not listed a 1971 +2
what are its criteria for being in the list ?

Hawksfield wrote:Hi all

A great list but my car is not listed a 1971 +2
what are its criteria for being in the list ?

Your chassis number should be listed at least.........?

That says one thing, my car says another thing. Which is correct?

Looking at the SportsCarWorld list it looks like someone has buggered it up!

2035 is listed a built 10/9/69 , 2037 is listed as built 11/7/69 yet 2036 is way out of sequence at 7/3/70.

The date on your federal plate ties in nicely between 2035 & 2037 so I am sure the date is correct on the plate.

Hawksfield wrote:A great list but my car is not listed a 1971 +2
what are its criteria for being in the list ?

What are you looking for? My car is a 1970 so it has the new style long VIN (as yours will). However, it is listed just using the end 5 characters (cars for different markets seem to share the chassis number, so both the chassis number and model letter are needed to get a unique number). In the list, the domestic car is shown first, followed by the other markets but the chassis number is not repeated. So if your car is an export model you need to search for just the chassis number.

Rob.

pharriso wrote:Looking at the SportsCarWorld list it looks like someone has buggered it up!

2035 is listed a built 10/9/69 , 2037 is listed as built 11/7/69 yet 2036 is way out of sequence at 7/3/70.

The date on your federal plate ties in nicely between 2035 & 2037 so I am sure the date is correct on the plate.

As I've said, my car has the new style long VIN so I also have two dates. The month/year in the VIN and the build date in the document which is several months after. My guess is that the first date corresponds to when the car was started to be built, and the second is when it left the factory. Which also explains why some of the dates are out of sequence as some cars sat in the factory for much longer than others...

pharriso wrote:Looking at the SportsCarWorld list it looks like someone has buggered it up!

2035 is listed a built 10/9/69 , 2037 is listed as built 11/7/69 yet 2036 is way out of sequence at 7/3/70.

The date on your federal plate ties in nicely between 2035 & 2037 so I am sure the date is correct on the plate.

Thanks Phil; my gut instinct is to go with the car's plate too. Now as to the origin of 7/3/70 (Yank-style date notation?), I do have the original sales invoice for the car and the date on it is typed as 03.07.70 (Limey-style notation), which is the same date. So I'm guessing that the car was in inventory for a while before it sold. It was sold directly from Lotus car (Sales) Ltd., so it sat around for a while apparently. Yes, it was a federal sold in the UK...original owner was a Yank living there at the time and brought it with him back to USA.

No idea why whoever compiled that list would have used the sale-date; maybe it was all they could get their hands on at the time.

The 'Build Date' on the vehicle's number plate is the date on which the numbers and paperwork were pulled to 'start' the build process. Due to the 'hand built' nature of the Lotus assembly line, the completion of the car would be some considerable time later, and not specifically documented as part of the process. If some parts were temporarily out of stock, a car could be in WIP (Work In Process) for a considerable time.

The Sports Car World list shows the 'Pass To Sales' date (PTS). That's the date Manufacturing transferred the complete car from it's inventory to Sale's inventory. The car could then be in inventory for some time before being invoiced and shipped.

In the mid-late 1970s, the British government operated an export incentive scheme in the late 1970s to encourage overseas sales. This may have been in effect too late to impact Elan sales (??) so I'm not saying it did. I'm just offering it as an example of the sort of stray games that could affect the 'non-sequential' nature of the VIN numbers.

If a company made a product for export, the British gov't would pay them the full value of the item as soon as it was finished and ready to ship. Placing the item in bond was all that was required.

The small volume car manufacturers, like Lotus and Aston Martin, built a surplus of export vehicles and used the payment from the government to fund their day to day operations, hence the stockpile of cars behind the buildings in period photos. They fed them into the supply chain as required, along with a mix of current-production inventory. The inventory was officially on Manufacturing's books until it came out of bond and transferred to Sales (PTS). The date on the car's ID plate was the 'Build Date', and the one in the SCW charts shows the PTS date without indicating if the car had been in bond or not. The dates could be different by weeks to months, and all shuffled up in order.

The only date that's really consistently placed on the timeline is the 'Build Date', which is when the process started. When the car first moved on it's own is pretty much an unknown.

Lotus (Andy Graham) is not particularly happy with the existence of the SCW list. They feel that it confuses things by not using the same 'official' Build Date the factory uses. They also feel the SCW list makes public info that should have been kept secure (like some of your own personal ID info), and that unscrupulous people use the info to build 'air cars' out of piles of scrap parts, then pass them off as original cars. Sort of like automotive identity theft.

Regards,
Tim Engel

oops....
should I remove this SCW list?

I would say so...

Hawksfield wrote:Hi all

A great list but my car is not listed a 1971 +2
what are its criteria for being in the list ?

Don't worry, mine isn't there either. Chassis no., Engine no., nor are any cars listed painted Sable. Or black for that matter - JPS cars?

I have to assume it's not complete