Inverted Start For Lotus

Magazine Title:	Road & Track
Published:	July 1964

To us, the relationship between the touring sports car and the pure racing machine has always seemed much closer than the kinship between sports cars and their more prolific cousins, the passenger machines. However, the swelling surge of mass interest in sportier vehicles is a tribute to the persuasiveness of the world's leading passenger car builders. In fact, the starting grid of the local supermarket is already a glut with vehicles bearing exotic nomenclature once reserved for the Grand Prix circuit. While this pot of passion, pleasure and commerce has been a-brewing overseas, the folks at Lotus have been busily tunneling from the other end. Since their beginnings, the Lotus works has been principally concerned with out-and-out competition machines, and only recently began putting up cars that could be legitimately called street vehicles. It does not require an overly elasticized imagination to recognize the performance potential in adapting proven racing designs to the more tractable configurations of a touring sports car. At any rate, that's how it came about at Lotus. In the Lotus Elan roadster, the discerning autoist will find unmistakable evidence of current Grand Prix and GTO engineering and design applications. He will also find this machine provides a degree of combined performance unmatched by any production roadster, regardless of price. If our attitude seems a bit provincial, perhaps, it's because we have never tried to please everyone.

LOTUS ELAN ROADSTER Four cylinder Lotus twin cam Twin Weber carburetors 1558 cc, 105 bhp @ 5000 rpm top speed 115 mph Four speed close ratio all synchro gear box All independent Chapman suspension Lotus Girling disc brakes Approximate delivery 30 to 90 days $3,922 P.O.E. Los Angeles

SHOWROOMS AND SERVICE FACILITIES

MANHATTAN BEACH, Bob Challman-Ecurie Shirlee Corp., 2301 Sepulveda Blvd.

LONG BEACH, Briney-Gray Imports, Inc. 3515 Atlantic Ave.

SAN CARLOS, Rod Carveth Enterprises, Inc. 770 El Camino Real

SAN BRUNO, Bob Cole Motor Imports, Ltd. 444 El Camino Real

ESCONDIDO, Escondido Imports 183 E. Washington

FRESNO, Foreign Motor Sales 310 Blackstone Ave.

OAKLAND, Stan Peterson -Autocourse Engineering, 427 East 12th St.

SANTA BARBARA, Phipps Motors 233 W. Carrillo St.

SAN DIEGO, Dale Shoupe -Quality Foreign 3464 Kurtz

SACRAMENTO, Von Housens Motors 1729 Fulton Ave.

WOODLAND HILLS, Westland Motors, Inc. 20021 Ventura Blv.

TACOMA, WASHINGTON, Geno's Imported Cars 5911 Steilacoom Blvd. S.W.

SPARKS-RENO, NEVADA, Dan Gillum Motors 1840 "B" St.

BOISE, IDAHO, Thompson Motor Company 1112 Bannock St.

ECURIE SHIRLEE DISTRIBUTION CORPORATION, 2409 Sepulveda Blvd., Manhattan Beach, California. Exclusive Distributors for Lotus Cars throughout the Western United States