Lest you buy into the "Colin Chapman was a genius" myth, Chevy tried the idea in 1959. They stuck with it until 1664, by time the chassis weight saving was negated by the need to put so much reinforcement into the sills of the body that was mounted on it. Image Unavailable, Please Login
I always thought the Eclat was a good looking car - only ever seen one in the flesh. Image Unavailable, Please Login
I agree, the Eclat was a better resolved design than the 2nd gen Elite. I think Lotus hoped to copy the success of the Reliant Scimitar shooting-brake. When I arrived in London in 1977, seeing an Eclat in traffic was a real event, they looked exotic and cool, but they didn't age well and of course always had the famous Lotus reliability issues.
How many great drivers were killed or maimed in his cars? My favourite story is the inboard brakes drive shaft of the Lotus 72. Of course Chapman insisted it was hollow to reduce weight, but didn't have a drill long enough, so they put them in a lathe, drilled from one end to halfway, then reversed the shaft and drilled from the other. The holes were never in perfect alignment and the point of mismatch became the point of failure. This piece of design brilliance killed Jochen Rindt.
He also tried doing away with washers under nuts in order to save weight... a falling to pieces guarantee.
Jim Clark a wet F2 race caused deflating tyre along the way 25 GP wins in Lotus. Rindt well many arguments accident was caused by car failure ......death by lack of a crutch strap (throat sliced ) poor safety crash barriers and perhaps helped by running high gears,(speed) Ronnie Peterson, a poor race start ,, race start accident, died of fat embolism /kidney failure. Alan Stacey was killed at speed when a bird contacted his face Ricardo Rodriguez killed rear suspension failure. Gary Hocking was killed in a privately entered Lotus , failure of rear suspension, or perhaps incorrect steering reassembly. That Elfin Mono I raced was based on a Lotus 25 , and took very little to damage a thin tube called suspension, the pre-'65 cars were small and light with basic safety. Ferrari F! fatalaties E.Castelloti L.Musso Peter Collins Von Trips Lorenzo Bandini Gilles V
Another myth : “The perfect racing car crosses the finish line first and subsequently falls into its component parts.” — Ferdinand Porsche
Admittedly Ian, I'm a Lotus fan boy but one thing that I always thought odd about the Lotus handling reputation (myth?) is that a key ingredient to superb handling is torsional rigidity and a stiff chassis and in my experience, a Lotus never subjectively had these attributes. I've only driven a Europa S2 (Renault TS cross flow engined) and an Aust delivered Esprit Turbo. Both felt they had phenomenal road holding and razor sharp/race car like responses (as if I know how a proper race car feels). As I never drove a Ferrari 308 or an Esprit to its limits, the Esprit felt to me the more amazing handling car in normal cut and thrust traffic. However, from a cerebral perspective, I could never quite reconcile how a steel backbone chassis car with fibreglass body could handle better than a well designed space frame with metal body (aka Ferrari). I can imagine how a car with low grip can be made to handle but with an Esprit, the greater grip would surely have placed more torsional loads and impacted handling at the limit. Yet Esprits are generally considered amongst the best handling mid engineed exotics. Perhaps the low weight, longitude engine/gearbox and supple suspension were key to achieving the handling results. P.S I was involved in a crash on the infamous Devils Elbow in Adelaide in 1989 when the friend driving his Europa spun the car and crashed into the barriers. I recall cars behind trying to avoid us and when the car hit the barrier, withstood the impact remarkably well, only causing a thick open crack to the rear body work and kinked rear bumper. Very little damage giving the nature of the accident. So I think they may have been fine in a direct front or rear impact accident. The cause of the spin were worn splines on the rear hubs.
As a side note - De Tomaso also used a backbone chassis for the pretty Ford Cortina powered Vallenlunga and gorgeous Ford 289 V8 Mangusta - the former was fine handling, and the later was notorious for poor handling - some contemporary reports claimed the Mangusta understeered and oversteered at the same time. By the time the Pantera came on the scene, they used a monocoque chassis instead. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Your are clearly NOT happy here in the colony,I suggest you go back to Chinah, how did that work out last time ?
Morning coffee with Noosa clubbies today was fun ; admired RVW’s “new” Bristol (Cooper Bristol BMW engine); and a nice chat with a gentleman called Tony who is a rally navigator (note for Klink: he did an early TT in what he described as an ‘early Volvo’, I didn’t go into details). Has anyone heard of Ineos? Being built by an entrepreneur in an old Mercedes factory in France, but styled, after early Landrovers and with a turbocharged diesel BMW engine.
My absolute favourite. Hurry up and buy it for me. I will do hedges. Probably anything else for it too. [emoji45]
There were a couple on the coast some years back, an SV and another .... heard the SV running, not as nice a sound as Ferrari V12 but still special
