The Poor Mans Lotus is Still A Lotus

The Lotus philosophy is legendary, many people’s first thought when Lotus is said is Chapmans decree:

“Simplify, then add lightness”

The car that springs to mind to hit this breif is the classic-in-the-making series 1 Elise. However they have found their spot at the £20k mark, for a discount you can get the Lotus engineered Vauxhall VX220 for close to half that. However, if that is still a stretch financially many people turn to the ever present answer, the Mazda MX-5. These can be readily had for the £3000 mark if you are fine with a decent NC, possibly an NB and I have to say on the surface it ticks all the boxes. Its light, the steering is excellent, its not too much power and even the styling is similar (A picture of an NA and an Elan make this very obvious). However, the box it doesn’t tick is crucial and that is the badge on the front.

The true poor mans lotus

The first Lotus to wear the moniker “Elite” was a beautifully shaped car in 1957 showed at the Earls court motor show. This is not the car i’m talking about, instead its the 1974 type 75 Elite that is the contender. Once holding the record as the most expewnsive 4 cylinder car on sale, thankfully it has depreciated quite a lot into the realm of the average working man. However, your expensive Lotus in this era was a hunk of fiberglass wrapped around a spine chassis. By modern standards it’s a rather poor design, however with 155hp claimed by the ever optimistic engineers over at Hethel and circa 1150kgs to push around it makes an interesting alternative to the MX-5.

Desinged by Oliver Winterbottom, you get a 2+2 layout shooting brake with a rather odd vertically divided boot separated by glass above the rear passengers head. However this wasn’t satisfactory to the US market who demanded a different shape and a year later a longer, sleeker fastback was born in the form of the Eclat. Both shared the shame chassis, unfortunately one of its weak points as they came un-galvanised until a point in 1980 when they came out with the Type 83 Elite and the Eclat Excel, later revised to just Excel. The pre-1980 cars are cheaper, a ratty driving one can be occasionally had for the £5k mark. You are strongly advised to ensure the inboard rear drum brakes are in tip-top condition as if they arent, you should be prepared for a hefty bill to take the rear subframe off to gain access to them.

The engine, and what it could have been

If you ask many owners, there is a suspiciously large amount of room present in the engine bay. If you ask a subset of those owners, some will have shoved in a Rover V8 with little fuss in the way of room. This is all down to the planned V8 based off of the Type 907 4-cyclinder, which in turn is allegedly related to the Vauxhall slant-4 of the 60s. a 4.0 litre lump, equally as power dense as the 907 ending up in it would have produced an enormously impressive for the time 310 horsepower, far more than the 3.9/4.0 Rover V8’s 188hp over 10 years later.