This article is about Lotus – one of the truly great sports car companies of all times and their offshoot Team Lotus that vied with Ferrari for the most successful constructor in F1 during the 60s and 70s. I’ll start with Lotus roads cars first and will finish with the Formula 1 racing team.
So, Lotus was the brainchild of Colin Chapman, a student of aerodynamics. He started to build sporting specials in 1948 and with some early success, other people wanted his cars, so he developed kits to sell to other drivers.
In 1952, Chapman set up a facility to start to build better kits in North London. He was still racing them and the Lotus 6 was the first true production model with the chassis and aluminium panels outsourced to other companies. The early Lotuses achieved huge success in club racing and buyers would modify their cars with a choice of engines and gearboxes based on the category they were racing in.
In 1954 the racing side was split from the main company to concentrate on building pure race machinery whilst the main manufacturing company produced the iconic Lotus 7, which spawned many imitators.
Virtually all the early Lotuses were sports racers and were sequential in numbering until 57 when the Lotus 14 appeared and took the name Elite – thus starting along line of cars with names starting with “E”. The Elite was fitted with a 1200cc 4-pot Coventry Climax engine – Lotus were using Climax engines in their Formula 2 and early Formula 1 cars as well.
In 1959 the factory was moved to a bigger premises in London before a move to their present location at Hethel on the east side of Britain in 66.
The early cars were built with aluminium panels but the first Elite used fibreglass extensively even for load bearing items. Chapman was a genius of a designer and used his racing to test materials and designs – and he built a team of designers and engineers that were at the forefront of automotive design.
The Elite was replaced by the Elan in 62 which was made as a fixed or drop head coupe and was fitted with a 1500cc Ford motor.
The Elan had a 9 year run and was joined by the Europa in 66 which originally had a Renault engine but later years had Ford power – just like the F1 cars. The Europa was a closed 2+2 and several versions were made with twin-cam engines and even a one off with a Rover V8! The internal numbers for the Europa were the 46, 47, 52, 54, 62, 65 and 74!
Then in 1974, the Elite returned as a luxury 4 seater known as the Elite 2 and this was joined by the Eclat S1 a 2+2 version of the Elite 2. Lotus was slowly heading up the luxury scale and producing more expensive and low volume sports cars. The Elite and Eclat were also joined by the first Esprit in 78.
The 80s saw the Series 2 versions of the Elite and Eclat, the Series 3 Esprit and then the Excel replaced the Eclat. It was also rocked by the death in 1982 of Chapman from a massive heart attack – he had been living a fast paced lifestyle with the F1 team and it finally took its toll. After his death, Toyota bought a chunk of stock in Lotus so the Excel used Toyota running gear.
Then in 1986 GM bought Toyota’s stake and the rest of the company and Lotus released the next generation Elan (code named M100) which was the only front drive model and powered by an Isuzu turbo motor – thanks to being in the parts bin of the new owner.
GM didn’t own Lotus for long – they sold it 93 to a holding company controlled by Romano Artioli the resurrector of the Bugatti name and under his guidance the first Elise was produced – named after his grand-daughter. This car initially used the classic Rover K-Series engine that went into many lightweight sports cars but then switched to Toyota power as Rover collapsed. The Elise spawned the Exige, a wilder lightweight coupe and the Exige S that had a supercharger fitted.
Artioli held the company for 3 years before selling out a majority stake to Proton, the Malaysian manufacturer of old Mitsubishi designs.
In recent times, Lotus has renewed the Europa name with a classically styled 2+2 with an Opel turbo unit. In 2009 Lotus launched the Evora, another 2+2 using a 3.5 litre Toyota V6. It is due to be on sale next year.
A sister company, Lotus Engineering, has co developed many cars such as the Vauxhall Lotus Carlton, Lotus Cortina, Lotus Talbot Sunbeam and the Vauxhall VX220. This company has provided technical support and components for many cars and products.
So what about the racing team? They were split from the main company in 54 and raced in many single seater categories like Formula 1, 2 and 3, Indy cars and other championships. In Formula 1, they took their first win in 1960 and went on to 7 Constructors and 6 Drivers Championships with Jim Clark (2), Graham Hill, Jochen Rindt (posthumously after he was killed at Monza), Emerson Fittipaldi (2) and Mario Andretti.
The success in Formula 1 lead to the reduction of team cars in other categories, preferring to supply components and cars for customer purchase.
Lotus racing cars were at the forefront of technology and business – they were one of the first to race a mid engined single seater with a Coventry Climax engine; they beat the field at the 65 Indy 500 causing that series to switch to mid engines and they debuted - and won first time out – with the Ford DFV which became the most success F1 engine of all time. They also produced the gorgeous twin chassis 88 which was banned quite quickly but showed that Chapman was at his height of technology brilliance by mastering ground effect – a by product of his studies 40 years earlier.
Chapman was also the first F1 team owner to introduce sponsorship with firstly the Gold Leaf Lotus and then the ultra classic John Player Specials.
Sadly after Chapman’s death, the team started a slow decline using Renault and Honda engines before being sold and ultimately dropping off the back of the grid. Many of today’s racecar influences came from Chapman’s designs and the world of motoring misses someone of his calibre – there aren’t that many designers who can replace him.