The Essential Guide to buying the Lotus Elan of your dreams, this book
will guide you through all you need to know. The Lotus Elan and Plus 2
are the definitive classic Lotus Sports cars. Small, light, and powered
by Lotus's own Twin Cam engine, these were and are fast, great handling
sports cars with a Grand Prix winning pedigree. With a winning formula
of glass fibre bodyshell, and simple sheet steel backbone chassis, the
Elan was an affordable replacement for the expensive and exotic glass
fibre monocoque Lotus Elite, and became the mainstay of the Lotus road
car range throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s. First introduced as
an open two-seater in 1962, and as a Coupé in 1966, the Elan was
available as a do-it-yourself 'kit' car or in factory assembled form,
and was refined through the 1960s, culminating in the famous Sprint
models of 1971, with the big valve 130bhp Twin Cam engine. The widened
and stretched 2+2 Elan with its vestigial rear seats - named,
unsurprisingly, the Plus 2 - was introduced in 1967, followed by the
higher-spec Plus 2S in 1969, which was the first Elan not available in
kit form. The Plus 2S 130 gained the Sprint specification engine in
1971, and the final Elan was the Plus 2S 130/5 of 1972. Just over 9000
Elans were produced between 1962 and 1973, while just over 5000 Plus 2
were produced between 1967 and 1974. This book has been written to
provide the prospective owner with all the information they need to
establish if an Elan or Plus 2 is for them, and what to look for when
viewing an example. All aspects of the cars are examined, including
paperwork, mechanical issues, bodywork and interior with many photos of
example cars to assist in the assessment of an individual car, and
understand the implications of many of the common problems that a car
can exhibit. The author is a Lotus enthusiast, and has been working on
and writing about classic Lotuses for a number of years.