Earls Court, October 1962: The Lotus Elan Makes Its Debut

Sixty-four years ago tomorrow, the London Motor Show opened its doors at Earls Court. It ran from 17 to 27 October 1962, with more than sixty manufacturers on stands. Lotus was on stand 116, and the car it brought was new: the Elan 1500, known inside the company as the Type 26. It went on to become Lotus’s biggest commercial success up to that point.

The car it had to replace

The Elan followed the Elite, a beautiful coupé built around a glass fibre monocoque. The Elite was expensive to make and had a reputation for unreliability, and it stretched a small company thin. The Elan was meant to be cheaper to build and easier to live with.

It was first intended to copy the Elite’s glass fibre monocoque. Ron Hickman, who led the project, pushed instead for a prototype built on a separate backbone chassis, and that is the design Lotus adopted.

What was on the stand

The production Elan used a steel backbone chassis with a glass fibre body bolted to it at 16 points. Suspension was by double wishbones at the front and Chapman struts at the rear. The engine was the Lotus Twin Cam: a Ford Kent four-cylinder block wearing an alloy, chain-driven twin-cam head designed by Harry Mundy. Early cars had a 1,500 cc version, and these were soon replaced by the 1,558 cc engine that became the standard unit. A Series 1 weighed around 640 kg.

At launch the Elan cost £1,095 in kit form, with a fully built car just under £1,500. Customer cars reached their owners in early spring 1963.

A long and busy life

The Elan grew a family over the next decade. The longer four-seat Elan +2 arrived in 1967, and the Sprint followed in January 1971 with the Big Valve Twin Cam, developed under Tony Rudd and rated at 126 bhp. Lotus announced that the last Elan had been built in the summer of 1973. Lotus Marques puts production at 12,224 Elans plus around 5,200 +2 models, though published totals vary.

Its influence lasted longer than its production run. When Mazda launched the MX-5 in 1989, the original Elan was widely credited as its inspiration. The same light, simple recipe returned at Lotus itself with the Elise S1 in 1996.

Where to see one

Elans are among the most common classic Lotuses at club meets and historic events, and many of the gatherings on our events page will have a few. For the wider story, see our guides to Lotus history and famous Lotus cars.

Sources: The 1962 Motor Show, Oct 17-27 from Motor Sport, Lotus Elan history from Lotus Marques, and Lotus Elan on Wikipedia.