Interesting original +2 for sale on e-bay. Item no. 280219980461. Apparently it has only had two owners, the first being Lotus Cars. 26000 miles only.
The registration plate is UVF 103H, which had me scurrying for my books. I thought it was familiar and I dug out UVF 101H, which was a drop head Elan road tested by Motor in 1969; as well as UVF 102H, which was a +2 road tested again by Motor in 1969.
So the possibility exists that the +2 for sale was also a factory demonstrator or press car. Who knows?
Off course everyone needs a plus 2 to go with their Elan. Think of the savings in have a common set of spare parts for the 2 cars, also the savings in only have to learn how to rebuild one type of engine drive train or other mechanical componet plus just one set of special tools.
John,
It looks really good, especially with the new body, how I wish I’d done that for mine instead of countless hours of paint stripping, redoing earlier awful repairs and dealing with crazing.
The chassis comments are a bit odd, is it a new chassis or have they refurbished the existing one I wonder.
side reflectors weren’t fitted to uk models, Japan and the US got “federal spec” cars with reflectors, some other markets may also have had them, but not the uk domestic!
Hmm… before posting I checked a period ad for the Plus2… which I assumed would be rather universal. Incorrect.
First of all, I didn’t check very well because the car in the ad (“Elegance breeds elegance. ‘You have obviously arrived in a Lotus’”) was (a) missing the front reflector (b) had the rear reflector and (c) had no Plus2 on the (right-hand) camera side… which, I think, was the passenger (badged) side (wipers are oriented to the right, sweeping left) thus a LH steering car?*.
And, that said, it was a US - no N. American - ad. Yet the car had an English license plate.
As someone said - “go figure”.
Keith
*gosh - another decision / determination. The wiper mount points are symmetrically aligned. Which way is UK, which US?
I think its fair to say that when “our” cars were produced, the badges and some other bits n bobs were thrown at the car, if they stayed put long enough, they were fixed, if they fell off, they didn’t get fitted!!
i seem to recall reading that it was not uncommon for the factory to convert completed cars from LHD to RHD and RHD to LHD in the yard to suit current orders/cope with cancelled orders, therefore it wouldn’t suprise me to find a UK car with Federal spec reflectors, or a federal car with them missing!
Lotus’s unique method of record keeping adds to our entertainment in trying to discover what actually came out of the factory!! I understand that there is a sizeable difference in the number registered cars to the number declared as being made on the tax returns/company accounts…I’m pretty sure the tax man would have loved to have been able to prove this at the time!!
I thought the same, but I seem to recall another outfit claiming ownership of the ex-Factory moulds - Boss Motors was it ?
Give that the car had a 6-7 year production run, I’m sure more than one set of moulds was produced - maybe they are now scattered to the far winds…or… how difficult is it to take a set of moulds from an exiting car ?
Tim,
I have a test comparison article from Car magazine between UVF103H and a 2 + 2 E Typet from June '70. Cost at the time ?2476 compared to ?2708 for the E.