Descripción
The Lotus Elan was created under Lotus Cars founder Colin Chapman's principle of lower weight to higher output performance. Rigidity was attained using a steel backbone double 'Y'-ended chassis bolted under a Ron Hickmann-designed lightweight fiberglass body. Power was produced from an advanced for the era DOHC 'Twin Cam' 4-cylinder 1, 6 lt engine to be delivered via a 4-speed gearbox to the rear wheels. Agility was achieved via rack and pinion steering, all wheel disc brakes and independent suspension of double wishbone at the front and Chapman struts at the rear. Alongside production of the Elan, Colin Chapman's Team Lotus was reigning at the race track winning Formula 1 World Champions Car Constructors title for years 1963, 1965 and 1968. In 1969 British Racing Motorsports F1 engineer Tony Rudd was recruited to redesign the technology that would soon go into Emerson Fittipaldi's car. In parallel, Rudd saw the Elan's Twin Cam engine potential which he exploited via enlarging the inlet valves, refining its ports, fitting the SE D-type camshafts and upgrading its carburetor jets. The ensuing 'Lotus Big Valve' engine was selected to be fitted in the last and most advanced version of the Elan, the Sprint which was introduced in 1970. In celebration of Team Lotus' consecutive F1 wins, Lotus decorated the Sprint with Team Lotus' John Player Gold Leaf livery of limited colors for the body over a golden stripe, golden bumpers and a 'World Champion Car Constructors' badge.
This particular 1971 example is the much sought after fixed head coupe variant, presented in Pistachio Green over Cirrus White. The car is in spectacular condition with only 3 owners from new. Full and extensive service history including receipts for all restoration work ever carried out on the car. Previous owner had the car between 1973 and 2022. Due to this, it is one of the most well documented and maintained sprints around today. Engine has been completely reconditioned and is in immaculate condition with less than 1000 miles currently on it. From new, the car was fitted with standard Big Valve TwincamEngine. Around 1974/ 75 the cylinder head was removed and sent to Ian Walker Racing in London.
Throughout the 1960’s and 70’s Ian Walker was one of the UK’s leading Lotus Twincam engine builders.
The head was polished and ported and gas flowed, valves re-seated plus the camshafts were re-profiled. It was reassembled and shimmed giving the engine approximately 135bhp.
After refitting the engine covered around 68, 000 miles. It was then removed from the car for a complete rebuild by Park Engineering in 2022.
The car was extensively restored by the previous owner including being fitted with the highly rated Elan Spyder chassis as well as a SMS body refurb and Col Crouch driveshafts.
The interior has also been fully recarpeted in the original black and both seats recovered with exact original ambler leathercloth. These are just some of the extensive restoration works done on this car, all of which are included in the paperwork. Most recently it has been given a high torque starter motor, alternator, new wiring loom and walnut dashboard.
