I’m restoring a 1970 S4 SE DHC which was originally L01 Lotus Racing Green (AKA “BRG” on the 1970 colour chart) but was resprayed some other shade of green, lighter, which I call “steam engine green”. It was a really crappy blow over (they didn’t bother to remove the tail lights, doors or bumpers) and only the second coat ever applied to the car. The paint is knackered and there are blisters all over the body now, and so it’s going for a “back to gelcoat” respray in September.
This leaves me with a small dilemma. Should I have it done in LRG or choose a brighter colour like yellow, orange or that lovely sky blue (is it Cerulean Blue)? I’m leaning towards LRG but it’s a bit dark and the car will mostly be driven down the winding country roads of Herefordshire; hence I am concerned with it merging into the background. I reckon it’d be a safer drive in a bright colour. An option might be a yellow stripe on LRG, front to back, in the middle of the bonnet. There are a few cars showing like this in the Google picture search, but is this considered a good thing? I’m no purist but the car may be sold at some point in the future and I don’t want a stripe to put buyers off.
I realise paint choice is a highly personal decision, but I’m hoping a discussion with forum members might help clear my mind. Over to you!
My Elan is a fairly dark BRG with a yellow stripe and I have to say that I don’t like it much, despite it being a classic Lotus racing livery.
The previous owner did the paint job and stripe. He told me that he added the stripe simply because it made the car more visible to other drivers, and thus safer. Given how I’ve had numerous instances where owners of lumbering SUVs were obviously surprised to see such a small car I think he was exactly right.
For many years I have considered removing the stripe, which is just stuck on (a hairdryer would loosen it) but his words have stayed with me. If I were to get the car resprayed I would choose a lighter color. I believe my car was yellow originally so I would probably return to that.
That said, a lot of people apparently do like it because it generally wins a decent position in popular vote car competitions even though it is totally undeserving!
There are some photos of your car in the gallery. Do you have silver or yellow bumpers?
Anyway, it looks good to me. I considered a stick on stripe, which gives the option for removal. A wide strip in the middle would look a bit better with pin stripes either side IMHO, and a cutout where the nose cone badge is (so you see a bit of green around it). Hmmm…
Here are a couple of pictures. When I purchased the Elan in 2011 it had yellow bumpers too. You could definitely see the car! But the bumpers were too much for me so I had them painted silver, color matched to the Panasport wheels.
(I stayed out of the recent thread about using original steel wheels - I opted to put mine in storage to protect them from the horrors of Massachusetts potholes.)
For me the stripes look really good with a smaller stripe either side of the big one, as in the photo below. When doing some work on my S3 Coupe I found a ‘ghost’ mark of such a stripe, so thinking of re-instating it, after 45 years of having a plain white Coupe!
A friend of mine was killed many years ago when a car did not see him and turned directly in front of his “Burnt Sand” Elan. It was during a club early morning run and i was right behind him. I would always go for a bright visible colour epecially now with so many large SUV’s on the road that makes it even harder to see an Elan.
That must have been traumatic, Rohan. My sympathies.
You’re right about SUVs. Here in my rural location there are many of them, usually Land Rovers / Range Rovers, so I take that comment to heart.
One of the reasons steering me towards BRG, other than originality, is that there are so few BRG cars about, but lots of yellow ones. I think, with the triple stripe as shown in Mark’s picture (obviously inverted colour wise - that is, yellow stripes on a BRG background), I should achieve enough visibility…?
It is difficult because car colour is a very personal thing but working against that I suppose is always that desire to keep it to its original green colour.
I know when I was looking for a +2 a few years ago now I found one that fitted the bill in virtually all respects of condition/price etc apart from the fact that it was green with a yellow stripe. I just knew I couldn’t live on a day to day basis with that yellow stripe on a green car!
To me I think a yellow car with a green stripe looks better than the other way around.
Just my two pennyworth of thought make of it what you will.
My two cents…or whatever that converts to…my car is BRG with a yellow stripe…when I first saw it for sale, it just screamed “Lotus” to me, so I am good with it. I never really considered the visibility issue early on, but having had the car for a number of years now, I appreciate the “attention” the paint scheme brings.
Given that your car was originally the darker green, I would probably go with that, and with a removable stripe, you, and any future caretaker, would have the option of doing away with the yellow…but that’s just me, a child of the Sixties, following the adventures of Mr. Clark and Mr. Chapman…
If it helps the human eye is tuned to be most sensitive to green colours, but that doesn’t mean it not hard to see a dark green car driving down a lane in shade under a tree.
I’d probably do it BRG and maybe with a stripe, I might go for a white strip rather than yellow. But I’d fully support the stick on stripe solution.
One thing that hasn’t been suggested on this thread is fitting daylight running lights. With availability of high power LED it probably a good safety mod to fit DRL, they possibly better than painting the car a bright colour. (There reason insurance often gives a discount to cars with DRL…)
My 2c: whatever the color, remember the frontal area is (deliberately) very small. Even if the other guy sees you he may well think you are farther away than you are and pull in front (Rohan’s friend and James Dean). I witnessed one such. The Miata coming up a rise really didn’t appear to be moving. So the Cadillac that had pulled out a little and then stopped decided to go ahead. The Miata hit it amidships. The Caddy’s fault but the Miata should have been on the brake (covering) as soon as he saw the Caddy.
Jon, it’s your car and your call.
When I was choosing colours for the GTS I had about 6-7 years to sort out my ideas.
It was to be BRG for about 5 of those years. It’s a Lotus and I love historic colours.
I had the paint code , a swatch and was ready to go.
But, thinking about it, I realised I didn’t really like green…
That car looks spot on and it’s exactly the photo I hoped to see. I think I’ll stick to BRG and have a (removable) stripe. If anyone has more photos of a green car with a yellow stripe, I’d love to see them!
