I was told by the seller that my +2 was a 1969. I started wondering when I saw that the wedgewood blue colour was discontinued in late 1968. I went to
geocities.com/trevorsparrow/ … meline.htm
and it turns out that my 50/1136 was in fact built in early fall/autumn (assuming a near linear production from 929 ( First Federal +2 in April) to 1280 (December). It has a G stamped engine (matching number, good)
What puzzles me is that it would seem that the Strombergs were not introduced until #1280. Is this right? If so, may a PO have swapped the head around for a Stromberg? It has the bulge in the bonnet to accomodate the Strombergs.
Anyway, thanks for any wise men who knows more about this than I do. (Learning fast, though)
cheers
Leif
Houston
1968! Elan +2
Check the back of the head near the cylinder head face and see if you have a number stamped there. If the head number matches the block number and the block number matches the VIN tag stamping or the build info than thats how it was built.
Take a look at this post, some have stamping and others don’t
elan-f15/cylinder-head-stamped-with-lotus-production-numbers-t15867.html
I would interpret 929/on as federal/stromberg and 1280/on as domestic/stromberg.
From Miles Wilkins Twincam manual I have -
G as federal/stromberg/elan
I as federal/stromberg/ +2
L as domestic/stromberg/elan
M as domestic/stromberg/+2
however if you click on Trevors link on 929 he lists the engine suffix as G
Hi Leif
50/1136 engine G16992 invoiced 11-28-1968
The Plus2 would have most likely arived at a dealer at the end of December or early January and be sold as a 1969 model in 1969 so thats how it was first registered, not on the invoice date.
Gary
All,
thanks for your excellent advice.
Gary, I was impressed with your ability to tell the invoice date! Do you have further gold nuggets of information on 1136?
The engine number matches the VIN plate, I will check the cylinder head this evening to see if it has any stamps on it.
Leif
1968 +2 Wedgewood blue
Hi Leif
The info is from Frank Bertrang, Frank had transribed all of the 60’s and 70’s Lotus car day book pages before he died recently. That is all of the info that is on the pdf that he did for the Plus2’s. The ones he did for the Europa had colors listed too. Colors are on some of the VIN plates as L0x in one of the corners so that would tell you about the wedgewood blue if it were original.
Gary
If you email Andy Grahan he may have more info, he is the current Lotus Archive person.
E-mail info at the following link.
business-listings-f3/lotus-historian-andy-graham-t19259.html
p.s. - nothing to be impressed about, I just copied the page off of the Sports Car World web page that Frank owned…
The cylinder head had nothing stamped or cast into it. The block has the number that is stamped on the VIN plate. Does this suggest that the head has been replaced?
Hi Leif
Not likely, just means that Lotus stopped stamping them as part of the build process. Early heads seemed to have been stamped with the engine number and the later ones wern’t. Maybe they wanted to track them for warrenty work or fraud, I don’t know.
More on this here
elan-f15/cylinder-head-stamped-with-lotus-production-numbers-t15867.html
Gary
Hi Gary,
thanks for the input. I heard back from Andy, and he had no more to report.
best