Lotus Marque & The Lotus Elan

The Lotus Marque – About the elan.

The cute little fibreglass bodied sports car that has the ability to embarrass, and harass much more powerful sports cars out on the road, or even on the race track.

The lotus elan, evokes many emotions to different people, some go all gushy and mushy at the site of the elan, but there are also the people who are always willing to quote the old, tired and worn cliche of “L.  O.  T.  U.  S”… Lots Of Trouble Usually Serious, purely to denigrate the lotus elan, for what reason, but who would ever know.

Many of the people who love quoting the above cliche, generally have had very little to do with elan owner ship, let alone having much to do at all with the various Lotus Marques.

If other types/brands of sports cars have been your life long interest, and you’ve never had the opportunity to drive a really good elan, then, you are leaving a great driving experience on the table… to quote a well worn sales man’s maxim.

The writer has a friend who has been a Healey man for many many years, but in the past twelve months he has been exposed to the Lotus Marque, and to be honest, he has become very enthusiastic about the lotus elan, to the point where he is searching for an elan to purchase, and this is from a fellow who has been pure Austin Healey for a long time.

Just one drive, that’s all it took for him to realize what an incredible driving experience the elan provided, his parting comment was, “the Healey will never drive like the elan”.

So how does one go about describing the lotus elan to someone who has little knowledge about any of the Lotus Marques.

Well, for starters they are; Absolutely fun and totally engaging sports cars to drive, you sit in, and become part of the elan.

• they are incredibly engaging,
• have an exhilarating performance,
• absolutely amazing handling,
• excellent brakes,
• the elan still has one the best sports car chassis, suspension and steering set ups you could possibly ever find on a performance car.
  
  Even Gordon Murray of McLaren cars will vouch for that.

The elan was designed by Colin Chapman and Ron Hickman, the overall design has all of the hallmarks of F1 Chassis and suspension design of the era, but it is still cutting edge, and its not surprising then, that the elan is still one of the most outstanding and most sought after classic sports cars within the Lotus Marque.

Apart from any of the Caterham cars, the lotus elan provides one of the most unadulterated, pure forms of “seat of the pants” motoring experience, because its just you and the elan, you don’t have ESC (Electronic Stability Control, nor anti-lock brakes (ABS), Nah, no Traction control either, the elan is NOT a boring car to drive, it is completely driver immersive, and an absolute joy to drive.

From day one when the lotus factory released the elan to the public in nineteen sixty four, it garnered instant motoring enthusiast appeal and approval.

Of course, like any British sports car, you will also find terribly neglected samples being driven around, cars that are way past the date when they really should have been fully restored and rebuilt to their former glory.

If you ever happen to stumble upon a rare elan example as a barn find, snap it up if you can because the Lotus elan has finally been recognised as being extremely under rated, and a severely undervalued classic sports car, and prices are now climbing year by year.

Despite how the uneducated motor pundits say about the elan, if they are well maintained the elan is quite robust, and very reliable, just ask any long term elan owner.

But there is just one bugbear with the lotus elan, and that is the unreliable rubber rotoflex or donuts as owners call them, there are four of them in the rear drive line, and they simply do not last, so most owners choose to remove them and replace them with a CVDS conversion.

The leading CVDS conversion on the market today is the All Australian designed and manufactured product.

For over three decades now, Elantrikbits Australia, has been supplying world class CVDS – Constant Velocity Drive Shafts to elan owners spread across the four corners of the globe.

The elantrikbits CVDS are synonymous with brilliant engineering, superb reliability, coupled with extreme ease of fitting, and onboard servicing, all of the parts are manufactured in Australia on Modern CNC four and five axis machining centres and CNC vertical milling machines, providing the finest accuracy and uniformity across all manufactured components.

They are a unique all Australian Designed and built product, envied by others, even our opposition said they are “World Class”.
For over three decades now, Elantrikbits Australia, has been supplying world class CVDS – Constant Velocity Drive Shafts to elan owners spread across the four corners of the globe.

CNC-Machining Of elantrikbits CVDS Components.

No matter what Lotus elan Marque you have… any of the elan models, including the plus 2 elan and five speed model, elantrikbits has a CVDS to suite your elan.

If you would like to read what many of our customers think about our product, then please visit the following link.
Go Here.

Thank you for reading.