Lotus Elan - derivatives

These were special-bodied Elans built for Stirling Moss by Williams & Pritchard. In the Files of the coachbuilder it is visable that in 1964 they worked on a Stirling Moss Racing Elan with special fibreglass nose and alloy hardtop, designed by Frank Costin

Moto Baldet was a Lotus dealership ran by Frenchman Andre Baldet in Northampton. This company produced a Lotus Elan called a Silver Streak or SS. This was sold from the Westonia Garage in Weston Favell in Northampton.

It was based on the S/E model and upgrades with metallic silver bodywork, metallic dark tangerine bumpers, back panel and wheels, rear bumper over-riders, rear guard finishing stainless strips, knock-on wheel nuts, larger chokes and jets in the carbs.

According to the late Graham Arnold (ex Lotus PR man and former chairman of Club Lotus) only five of these were made. See the sales brochure here.

Like the Moss Elans, the all-aluminium body of this car was fabricated by Williams & Pritchard. It used to belong to Paul Matty and in that period the car was raced by his wife.

This is the car that was supposed to go racing at Le Mans but was parked on its roof by Mike Spence during a race just before Le Mans. It's looks very different compared with the second IWR Elan. This one has the Elan front end (more or less), Cortina rear lights and the interior is built for racing. Note the huge Le Mans filler cap and pipe.

Later, when the car belonged to Martin Stretton, it was seen repainted in its original Gold Bug colour scheme.

Original design drawing

This is the second car that was designed by Ian Walker Racing (IWR), this was was bodied by Harold Radford. Again, fully made from alluminium.

It spent a large part of it's life in a collection in Switzerland.

Not a real beauty with its Thriumph Vitesse or Gordon Keeble lookalike front end, and that was also the opinion of Colin Chapman who warned Ian Walker that he would not sell hem any new Elans if Ian would continue to redesign these cars.
 

Designed by Pietro Frua, coupe based on the Lotus Elan 1600 S2

The car was shown at the International Motorshow in Geneva in 1964 and 1965 ans also at the Salon de l´Automobile in Paris  un 1964, but it naver made production.

Graham Arnold makes brief reference to the Frua Elan in his Buyers Guide:

"Frua of Turin was commissioned by the Swiss Lotus importers to produce a one-off styling execise on an Elan chassis. This looked like a scaled down Maserati and took three years to actually get on the road after the Turin Show. Present location unknown."
 

Shapecraft made alluminium fastbacks fitted to Elans for track use, these had a rear quarterlight, some were fitted to road cars which did not have the quarterlight and a few even had a Kamm tail with upturned spoiler. 
They had faired in headlights of a different pattern from the 26R, some had 26R front bumpers and wings, some had the faired in lights with (normal) front end.

Some people believe all Shapecraft Elans where based on the 26R, but others tend to deny this.

Here is an original advertisement text:

"Lotus Elan GT Conversion, Designed by Barry Wood and built by Shapecraft.
An attractive coupe version of the Elan 1600 sports car. Available for both
racing and touring, this conversion increases the speed of the 105 Bhp elan
to over 120mph without impairing acceleration times.
Specification:- a lightweight aluminium top section, resin bonded to the
fibreglass body, shaped to give the best possible streamlining. The interior
roof is lined and finished in rexine and the exterior is sprayed to match.
Optional extras include pile carpets and knock-on wheels."


 

There isn't much information available on this car. Hexagon Garages seemingly wanted to make a small series of this Elan Estate but finally only produced two units. It was nicknamed "Elanbulance". Lotus Dealer Hexagon of Highgate produced these cars based on the Elan Sprint.

The conversion added £595 to the £1895 price of the new Lotus Elan Sprint.
 

A Lotus Elan replica kit car introduced at the New York Auto Show in 1967 based upon the VW Beetle chassis and running gear with fibreglass bodywork.

Autodynamics was formed by Ray Caldwell in the early 60’s as a racing car manufacturer and produced Formula Vee and Ford chassis and was also active with Can-Am and Formula 5000. The company was already supplying replacement fiberglass body panels for Elans and adapted them for the VW chassis.

Although the Hustler body looked a lot like an Elan, it was stretched 4 inches wider and 6 inches longer to fit on a shortened (by 10 inches) VW platform. The body was made of two sandwiched layers for extra strength and was delivered with a hood, decklid, doors, dashboard, windshield frame, soft top, simple fiberglass bucket seats, and hardware kit. The Hustler utilized a Corvette windshield and VW latches, hinges, hood releases, wipers, and side window cranks. The side windows were intended to be cut from Plexiglas, and templates were included with the assembly manual.

There were many options available, including more comfortable Lotus Elan seats, a deluxe upholstery kit, a heater and defroster kit, and complete instrumentation. The "pop up" headlights were actuated by long mechanical cables.

The Hustler was offered as a kit for $1,300, and completely built for $2,600.

Only 43 rear-engined fiberglass Hustlers were built.