3 replies to this topic

[trw999]

I'm attempting to track down all and any information about the one-off Lotus Elan +2 Estate, which was used to give Emerson Fittipaldi a lap of honour after he had won the Rothmans 50,000 race at Brands Hatch on 28 August 1972.

 

The pictures, links below, are from the superb Chris Harvey Elan book and are the only two I am aware of. The first shows Emerson sitting on the roof, his legs and feet through the sunroof, very firmly tying him down! The second is apparently a scale model of the conversion before it was carried out.

 

The car has the Stromberg bonnet bulge, indicating that it is probably a 1969/70 +2. On this forum 12 years ago kayemod indicated that the car was a one-off for a Lotus customer, carried out at the factory and that it actually looked pretty awful in the flesh! The registration SET 2 is currently on a Nissan Juke.

 

So, does anyone else have any additional information, please?

 

(I might add, before we have any thread drift, that this car is not one of the two Elanbulances, Sprint estate conversions by Hexagon. Neither does it have anything to do with the Paul Matty Plus 2S 130/5 estate he produced in 2006 for a customer. Nor is it remotely similar to the conversion carried out by Pete Ritchie on his +2 using a Scimitar GTE tailgate.)

http://www.jpgbox.com/page/51456/

http://www.jpgbox.com/page/51457/

[BRG]

I never understood the urge that seemed to prevail in the UK back then to turn perfectly nice sports cars into estates.  There was a hideous XJS estate and an equally dire TR7 estate, both inflicted by main dealers IIRC.  I guess that maybe they saw how Ogle transformed the ugly duckling Scimitar coupe into the swan like GTE and thought they could do the same.  They couldn't.

[colinsays]

Seems the car was comissioned by JPS

<a href="https://subefotos.co...bca5755771o.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="https://thumbs.subefotos.com/f249c9260cef16a45f31bcbca5755771o.jpg" /></a>

 

Edited by colinsays, 25 March 2019 - 12:19.

[trw999]

Thanks Colin.

 

Is that taken from the new JPS book? If so, are there any accompanying words to go with it?

 

Tim