Lotus factory moulds - scrapped!

[GavinT]

Below is a post by Nick Pearson on Facebook (with his permission):

Here are some photos I've been meaning to scan for a while. I would have taken them in the early 1980's at a scrapyard local to the Lotus factory.

The first photo shows 6 Europa moulds stacked on each other with an Elan mould to the right.
The top two Europas on the right are Twin Cams but it's not clear what the others are and I can't remember that far back if I knew at the time.
The stiffening frames have been removed and you can see that cut outs have been made to prevent the moulds from being used.

The second photo is a close up of the Europa moulds.
The third photo is a close up of the Elan mould.
The fourth photo is a Europa front plus various Elan parts in the background.
The fifth photo shows an Elan body rear plus other parts in the background.
The sixth photo looks like an Elan bonnet mould.

The seventh photos shows three DeLorean chassis that have been run over by a JCB a few times.
Looking closely I can see that they were once fully made up cars but the bodies have been forcibly removed from their chassis.
I don't remember seeing any DeLorean bodies anywhere.
The eighth photo shows a close up of a DeLorean chassis and engine.
The ninth photo shows a pair of DeLorean Doors that have been flattened.

[Chuck Nukem]

Gavin,

How wild to think that my car probably came from one of those molds.... Those are the parents of all our children....

Thanks for posting.

[BDA]

How sad that all those molds have been rendered unusable. But I understand that a company has some their own collection of original molds (Boss Motors?). Did Richard build stock body cars? If so I wonder what he did for molds.

[Bainford]

Wow! Very interesting photos.

[JR73]

Banks has moulds for genuine 47, TC, Banks 47 and Banks 62(one piece shell and 3 piece version). They may also have a mould for the S1 and S2 shells but I don’t remember seeing either ordered whilst I was there. The Banks 47 shell is based on the S2 so they definitely have the inner S2 body mould.

Also has moulds for all the panels such as doors, bonnet, boot, spoilers, sill covers etc for all versions. Has moulds for S1 dash and seat/bulkhead too. Plus modified versions of most of those.

Couldn’t say if the standard moulds are ex factory though.

[GavinT]

Yes, sad to see.
Not sure of the background to all this but it may well be that these are "old" moulds that are past their use by date. By that I mean they've pulled as many parts as is possible from them. Moulds have a finite life, too. Still a shame.

Apparently all this is gone, now . . cleared for housing.