I hope I'm posting this in the right section, if not then please move it....?!
A good few years ago now I was invited to attend a track day with my Europa by a friend who had been involved with Lotus in the early 90’s, primarily with the racing Esprits in the world endurance championship, Le Mans and also in America - as a result of this they had a fair few Lotus related contacts and they promised me that there would be some people attending that I would be particularly interested to meet...
They weren’t wrong, John Frayling and Peter Cambridge are two names that are key to the Europa story, as I’m sure a lot of you know... for those that don’t, here is a quick summary;
John Frayling worked at Lotus primarily as an exterior stylist. He was a key figure involved in the styling and design of a large number of Lotus cars including the Type 14 Elite and is credited as the main guy responsible for the styling of the Europa.
He was also responsible for the Lola Mk6 GT (that went on to become the GT40) and the Lola T70.
Peter Cambridge worked at Lotus at a similar time to John and was heavily involved in the styling and design of the interiors of the same cars and was directly responsible for the Europas interior design.
I was lucky to get to talk to both John and Peter for quite some time and needless to say that the tales they had of working with Colin Chapman where everything you'd expect them to be....!
John told me that he and Colin had set up in a unit (I think somewhere in or around London) away from prying eyes to work on finalising the exterior design of the Europa, in amongst the discussions and reworks Colin kept disappearing out and returning with a selection of different light units and bumpers etc to evaluate...
After what he said was a long day they decided to stop, as they where leaving John noticed that a number of cars parked on the street outside had various parts missing..... lights, bumpers etc!!! They had been 'borrowed'....!
Anyway, Peter mentioned that although he worked at Lotus for some time he had never actually travelled in a Europa - even better, he accepted my offer of taking him out onto the track for some brisk laps and although the below pics aren't exactly brilliant they are a reminder that I was very lucky to meet two of the key people involved in the design of the Europa.
Peter Cambridge can be seen climbing out after his first ever ride in a Europa (a Europa that had absolutely none of the original interior that he designed though! - something that he found quite amusing as he climbed in.)
