4129R was bought from James Cowan in Chicago last year. I have changed the steering wheel to the original, renewed the dashboard, changed the lights to UK spec (orange rear indicators), and had the seats door cards, and centre console re-trimmed in oatmeal, the original colour.
I took it to the Lotus factory last Friday when a friend of mine was racing in a sprint meeting around the Lotus test track, to take some photos of where she was made, but photos are apparently strictly forbidden of anything anywhere on Lotus factory land, so I had to content myself with just looking at the cars around the factory. Apparently if I had taken any photo of anything, security would have ejected me straight away, so I had to hide my camera quickly.
There were 3 people at the sprint meeting who owned Europas in the 70's who came to have a look at her to reminisce on old memories.
In 1978 I used to own JEX591N, a 1975 Special which was the 6th last Europa ever made, but when children came along, I had to sell her in 1979 for £4,500, and I am now re-living my youth 35 years after I sold her. Since I sold her, I have only seen 1 Europa in the UK, parked in London, and I live in Norfolk and work in London, so I should see a fair selection of cars in my travels. The car was a UK spec car, with gas struts on the engine cover, a US federal bodyshell with the side repeater lights front and rear, (they were using up all the bits they had left around the factory), and an oatmeal interior. JEX590N was a car Lotus kept in their museum, until they went bust and had to sell the cars, and that car sold at a Coys auction in July 1998 for around £18,000 = $29,000. I presume it was very low mileage. See:-
http://www.motorbase.com/auctionlot/by-id/1844128394.
I will soon be taking the brown car I bought from South Carolina apart. I cannot even move the drivers seat it is so badly rusted in its runner, so I fear much careful drilling will be needed to get the sliding rails out. I don't know how bad the rest of the car is until I take the dashboard out. The windshield was held in by silver duck tape, and when taking the tape off, most of the brown paint came with it. The front cover over the spare wheel (hood?) was also held down with duck tape, and similar paint flaking problems have occurred. The car needs a lot of TLC, but living in Norfolk, there are plenty of locals around who used to work at the Lotus factory, and who know all about the cars, but haven't seen any for many years.
When I took 4129R (AOA76M) into a small local market town and parked it in the market square, an old local man wandered over, and in a broad Norfolk accent said "I haven't seen one of those for over 30 years. I used to make 'em. I was on the production line. I used to stick the two halves of the bodyshell together". When I filled up with petrol (gas) on my way to the Lotus factory last Sunday, the garage owner told me he was on the Elan production line, and the Europa production line was behind him.
The car (4129R) gets a lot of admiration in the County where she was made. I will take her to the Norwich v Arsenal soccer match this Sunday, park her in the County Hall car park nearby, and see what the reaction is. Lotus used to sponsor the Norwich City football team. In Norfolk, there are many people who have worked for Lotus over the years, so they are admired as a local product. The main other Norfolk product is turkeys. Bernard Matthews had 20 turkey eggs in the 1950's and started breeding them. He bought lots of WWII airfields around Norfolk, built turkey farms on them, and died recently a very rich man.
I have other connections with the good old US of A. A B17 Flying Fortress, "Eager Eagle" 42-29684 of the 351st Bomb Group crashed in my back garden in 1943. I am still picking .50 cal bullets out of my back garden where the brown Europa is kept under a large car port.
Alex.
