Lotus Elan: Types 26, 36, 45

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=50 BGCOLOR="#339933" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <B>Lotus Elan:  Types 26, 36, 45</B></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=175 BGCOLOR="#336600" TEXT="#F7F7FF"> <div> <B>Lotus Elan</B></div> <div> <B>1962 - 1973</B></div> <div> <B>History &</B></div> <div> <B>Engineering</B></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id136.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Lotus Elan"><U><B>Elan Main Page</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id140.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Lotus Elan: Type 26R"><U><B>Elan 26R</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id141.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Lotus Elan: Types 26, 36, 45"><U><B>Elan Images</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id149.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Lotus Elan: Historic Images"><U><B>Historical Images</B></U></A></div> </td> <td valign="top" height=430 BGCOLOR="#FFFF66" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <B>History and Engineering of the Lotus Elan</B></div> <bR> <div> <I><B>The Lotus Elan is about the size of an Austin-Healey Sprite, yet packs the wallop of a 350-hp Corvette.  </B></I><FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><B>Car and Driver Yearbook, 1965</B></FONT></div> <bR> <div> The Lotus Elan was a replacement for the Elite which, though a high-tech car for the enthusiast, lost money for Lotus.  The Elan was not as elegant as its predecessor, its design and engineering being conventional, but it was still much more advanced than any road car of its epoch. For the enthusiast the Elan was <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#111111" FACE="Arial" ><B><U>THE</U></B></FONT> sports car of the1960s: it had no equal. Its handling was superb, it was very quick and somewhat civilized. The Elan was the badly needed commercial success for Lotus with about 9,000 units sold over 11 years of production.</div> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="775" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 219 WIDTH="352"><div> The basis of the Elan's superior road holding was its backbone chassis.  Made of 18 guage steel and weighing less than 100 lbs, the backbone chassis consisted of a center box with C-sections forking out to hold the drive train and the front/rear suspension.  It was very stiff at 4500 ft-lb per degree of twist. The Elan could be softly sprung, giving a comfortable ride, and still handle extremely well.</div> </tD> <tD VALIGN=TOP><NOBR><div> <IMG SRC="329a0d00.jpg" border=0 width="416" height="208" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <div> The four-wheel independent suspension consisted of double wishbones in front and a modified Chapman strut system in the rear.  The rear suspension had a wide lower wishbone and a coil spring-shock absorber unit attached to the top of the wheel hub which ran up to a high mounting point on the chassis.  This setup was very lightweight and kept the rear wheels upright and reactive to road surface changes.  The rear wheels were driven by half-shafts linking the differential and wheel hubs. The half-shafts had rotoflex joints at each end that looked like rubber donuts.  Disk brakes were fitted all-around.</div> <bR> <div> The Elan's engine was the Lotus Twincam. The block was from the Ford 116E and the cylinder head was a DOHC, aluminum unit produced by Lotus.  First seen on the Lotus 23 race car, this 1558cc engine was conservatively tuned to 105 bhp at 5500 rpm for the Elan.  Coupled with a 1500 lb vehicle weight, it gave the car a 7-second 0-60 time and a top speed of 115 mph.</div> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="793" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 169 WIDTH="549"><div> The Type 26 Elan originally came rather spartan with simple door latches and sliding windows in convertible form only (Series1 and early Series 2), although a removable hardtop was soon available.  In 1966 the Series-3, Type 36 Elan offered a coupe as well as a convertible and had electric windows. A Type 45 Series-4 Sprint version was announced in 1970 with 126-hp, a 0-60 time of 5.9 seconds and a top speed of 125 mph.</div> </tD> <tD VALIGN=TOP><NOBR><div> <IMG SRC="32fe7a30.jpg" border=0 width="231" height="163" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <div> In the late 1980s the Elan was involuntarily selected by Mazda as the model for their new sports car, the Miata.  The resemblance of the two cars is, of course, quite apparent.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>