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kimbo305
Jun 9, 2007

actually, yeah, I am a little mad
Ok, I guess this is the followup to the 348 thread where I own and report on an exotic car. I sold the 348 off (and not a mile too soon) and got a very nice salvage Boxster. But it was too good of an automobile, allowing you to park it outside in the rain or start it up whenever without worrying. It was a fun drive, but the relative reliability sort of took away from its character. I'm selling that off to a friend, but have already registered my next car, 1974 Lotus Europa Twin Cam Special.

And yeah, I bought it on BringATrailer, which I was following for a long time even before selling the 348 on there. There were quite a few cars that got me bidding, but the fact that this was local and already met all the street legality requirements was a huge plus. I test drove it and really liked it, so I bid and won.
http://bringatrailer.com/listing/1974-lotus-europa-twin-cam/

Upcoming topics:
- insurance, registration, inspection
- overview of paperwork/records
- initial driving impressions
- model trim history
- quirks

The salient thing to cover now is size. It's small, but within the realm of familiar, I guess you could say. I cherry picked a few modern cars to compare against.
code:
              1990 Miata  2005 Elise  2012 500   1974 Europa TC   1973 Elan Sprint
          +-----------------------------------------------------------------------
weight    |   2105        1951        2368       1565             1550
length    |   156.5       149         139.6      157.5            145
width     |   65.9        67.7        64.1       64.5             56
height    |   48.4        43.9        59.8       42.5             46.5
wheelbase |   89.2        90.5        90.6       92               84
hp        |   113         190         101        126              126
fuel tank |   11.9        10.6        10.6       15.1             11
So excepting the extra 500lbs (of safety), the Miata is a good comparison. The contemporary Elan was much smaller, 9" narrower and almost a foot shorter. In the bizarro universe of the late 60s, the Europa was floated as a grand tourer compared to the Elan.

The super had his truck parked in the garage this morning, so I took some pics to illustrate the size:



I'm gonna try to get some hard parking pics of this next to an NB.


Oh, right, the thread title -- the car's cabin is so cramped that the car has power windows, since there's barely a spot on the door that would allow a meaningful cranking motion. The previous generation had fixed windows.
The windows go up and down just fine, which saved me in an incident I'll detail later.

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InitialDave
Jun 14, 2007

I Want To Believe.
Oh man, driving that in the SUV-and-pickup infested USA?

kimbo305
Jun 9, 2007

actually, yeah, I am a little mad

InitialDave posted:

Oh man, driving that in the SUV-and-pickup infested USA?



I pulled up a good 8ft behind a new Camaro convertible, and I could neither see the rearview mirror over the bumper, nor the side mirror around the fender.
My eye level is just above the top of many cars' tires.

CAT INTERCEPTOR
Nov 9, 2004

Basically a male Margaret Thatcher
You got a car better built with better electricals that doesnt rust like a Lancia Delta.

Whats it like to drive?

kimbo305
Jun 9, 2007

actually, yeah, I am a little mad
First and foremost, it's about steering feel. This is my BaT post on my test drive:

On a brief drive, I got a good sense of the hype. Theres other cars that you might describe as wearing instead of driving, but because of the small cabin and wide, deep tunnel, it feels like this motorcycle looks: http://bikeweb.com/files/DAV_5724_2.jpg
with the top of the windscreen inches in front of you and the roof a bit closer.

Im 510 and didnt feel cramped, though the cabin might make others feel claustophobic. The pedals were actually a bit far away, in that pulling the seat close got the small steering wheel pretty close to my chest.

The standout impression I got from the drive is the steering. At one point, when returning up Robs gravel driveway, I heard the left front tire scrabble over 3 rocks. At the same time, I felt each rock individually kick back the steering wheel. Thats the kind of precision and delicacy granted by the Europas steering. Im glad I got to drive it, because talking about it sadly doesnt do it justice.

InitialDave
Jun 14, 2007

I Want To Believe.

kimbo305 posted:

I pulled up a good 8ft behind a new Camaro convertible, and I could neither see the rearview mirror over the bumper, nor the side mirror around the fender.
My eye level is just above the top of many cars' tires.
Hah, Cappo's the same, you get used to it (sort of). Being around the wheels of artics on motorways always has a background radiation level of :ohdear:.

You've got like twice the power in almost the same weight, too.

Seat Safety Switch
May 27, 2008

MY RELIGION IS THE SMALL BLOCK V8 AND COMMANDMENTS ONE THROUGH TEN ARE NEVER LIFT.

Pillbug
I love how crazy this is and I can't wait to see more.

Seen a bunch of Europa projects on GRM but those were always race cars, you never really got a good idea of "a day in the life."

kimbo305
Jun 9, 2007

actually, yeah, I am a little mad
This is the door latching mechanism:


The passenger door was having trouble latching at all, so I peered at the latch and noticed that little metal switch sticking out at the top right.
Toggle it into the other position, bang, closes tight. Everything else behaves the same (door opens when you press the button on the handle), so lemme just leave it that way.
Hell, I'll do the same to the driver's door.

I do a casual Sunday drive (casual meaning I wear pretty narrow shoes that still don't really fit into the pedal box and keep messing with shifting), and decide to fuel up at the end.
Whoops, I can't open the door from the inside. That toggle is effectively a child safety lock. I don't panic yet, but I also don't want to yell for another driver to come let me out of my car.

Oh, ok -- key back into accessory mode, put the window down, let myself out from the outside. And toggle that switch back the other way.

I'm still reading through the documentation, and the relevant pages in the service manual don't really cover the toggle. It doesn't seem to have any use on the outside, since the door still simply opens.

A badge on each side of the B-pillar trumpets Lotus' F1 success:

Lotus won the constructor's title in 73 as well, but I assume reusing the same badge beat out making new ones that were infinitesimally lighter from the extra year drilled out.

charliemonster42
Sep 14, 2005

There's one of these in a delightful (?) 70's brown running around my town every now and then. I never gave it a second look until recently and they seem like an absolute riot. However, at 6'3" with a 32-34" inseam, I don't think I'd fit :smith:

kimbo305
Jun 9, 2007

actually, yeah, I am a little mad
Insurance and registration

I arranged to go get the Europa a couple of Saturdays ago. Muffinpox would drive back the spares in the Charger. On the way there, I realized I hadn't gotten insurance to drive on the Europa.
I called up Amica, and luckily got an answer. However, they said they don't deal with vehicles of this age. I remember asking them about this when I got the Boxster insured, but must have mixed up insuring kit cars vs vintage. They transfered me over to Hagerty, who asked a ton of meaningful questions about usage, what normal cars I drove, how it was garaged, and even trim -- "ok, a 1974 Europa... is it a Twin Cam Special?" Never thought I'd hear that specific a question from an insurance agent. Hagerty was ok with everything -- the seller was already a customer, which seemed to speed things along, including having on file the non-17-digit vehicle identification number: 743650R.

We got a big box of spares along with an NG3 (not stock, but compatible) transmission. The spare windshield glass is not that big, but it was in a huge box that wouldn't fit into the Charger.

We drove to my apartment and I parked the Europa, expecting to get the RMV-1 registration form by Monday, when the agent told me that specific department would process the form.
When Monday afternoon rolls around, I call Hagerty up. Apparently, they physically mail out the form, as "it needs to be physically stamped." All the other insurance companies I've used simply use a digital stamp on the PDF they email me.

I get the RMV-1 form in the mail Wednesday and have to fill in a bunch of stuff that Hagerty already asked me, but whatever.
Thursday, I go to the RMV and turn in all my paperwork. The only thing I'm slightly nervous about is the old VIN. I'd be way more nervous if I wasn't holding the previous MA-issued title, so I know it got through the system once before. The clerk doesn't ask me anything about the VIN -- must have gone in just fine. She does remind me that tax is based on book value, which works out to $15570. Not that far off from the auction price of 16750, though higher than what I expected.

Inspection

Ok, on to the last step -- inspection. As I've watched various cars pass by on BaT, I've familiarized myself with what you need to pass state inspection in Mass:
- horn
- lights and turn signals
- wipers and sprayers
- working parking brake
Oh, and installed license plates.

When I stepped out of the RMV, this is what I saw affixing the license plate to the car:

I couldn't seem to back the plastic screw out with my minitool, so decided to have the inspection shop help me out.
I show up, and explain to the tech the shift pattern. He gets nervous about getting it into gear, and has me drive into the inspection bay.
From there, the shop (rightly) puts up a fuss about needing the plates installed. I figure that since the screw just spins and spins under a screwdrive, it must be affixed from the other side somehow, not using metal threading bonded into the fiberglass.

Verifying my guess is where the extremely spare construction of the Europa comes in handy. And is probably the reason the plate is installed this way.

The trunk area is simply a fiberglass tub that sits on top of a crossmember and around the lip formed by the fenders. It's only affixed by those two big bolts, which bolt into brackets off the air filter housing:


I borrow a socket wrench and 12mm from the shop, unbolt the bolts, lift out the tub, and spot the back side of the plate screws -- they're plastic (nylon) nuts. No shot of the nuts, but here's the tub hanging out by itself:


The tech unbolts the plate and I help him put the new one on -- there's some washers and rubber spacers that make it a bit finicky. As he's buttoning up, I got some shots of the rear suspension, shown later.

Anyways, we have the rear plate swapped, so I put the tub back in and bolt it secure. The shop manager puts up a minor fuss about the front plate not having any mounting solution before leaving it be.
I turn on the lights for the tech, and that's it.
No test of the parking brake, horn, wipers, or sprayers, which all do work.

I pay my $35 and get outta there.


Have you ever wondered how you could trim some weight off a wiper fluid reservoir? Well, how bout making it a bag?:

kimbo305
Jun 9, 2007

actually, yeah, I am a little mad
Rear suspension

Ok, I actually do have a shot of those plate holding nuts. Right at the bottom here:

The top two nuts have already been unbolted.

You can see the half-shafts coming out of the trans and heading out to the wheels.
The diagonal tube running from the starter to the back of the trans is the shift linkage. One rare thing on the Europa that is seemingly overbuilt.

Unlike, say, the rear suspension elements:

Yes, the drive axle is also the top link in a trailing arm setup. A CV joint wouldn't be able to handle that kind of shear load?
The trailing arm is that stamped C beam.
So F1 to have the trans housing be a stressed member of the suspension.

When I asked the seller about this setup, he mentioned that some owner do convert to double wishbone by building up the backbone frame and switching to CV joints.
Here's a setup that also switches to CV joints, but sticks to 2 links and a trailing arm.

e: you can see the shift linkage poking out the back of the trans. Muffinpox said he tried to look for my shifting into first at lights, but never noticed any movement from the linkage.

Adiabatic
Nov 18, 2007

What have you assholes done now?
I never really enjoyed the looks of this car, but your writeup has really given me a deep appreciation for it.

Great choice!

Boaz MacPhereson
Jul 11, 2006

Day 12045 Ht10hands 180lbs
No Name
No lumps No Bumps Full life Clean
Two good eyes No Busted Limbs
Piss OK Genitals intact
Multiple scars Heals fast
O NEGATIVE HI OCTANE
UNIVERSAL DONOR
Lone Road Warrior Rundown
on the Powder Lakes V8
No guzzoline No supplies
ISOLATE PSYCHOTIC
Keep muzzled...
Your trunk (?) shot is the first time I've actually seen one of these with that panel lifted. I've always wondered what's going on back there so thank you very much for solving that longtime personal mystery for me. These cars are weird and neat as frig so thanks for showing all this stuff to us.

Please wrap it in a JPS livery

Seat Safety Switch
May 27, 2008

MY RELIGION IS THE SMALL BLOCK V8 AND COMMANDMENTS ONE THROUGH TEN ARE NEVER LIFT.

Pillbug
Washer fluid bags used to be really common on older domestic cars, so I'm sure in Lotus' case it wasn't so much "let's save weight" as "let's be lazy as poo poo and pull one off a different production line."

http://www.allpar.com/history/memories/washer-bag.html

kimbo305
Jun 9, 2007

actually, yeah, I am a little mad

Adiabatic posted:

I never really enjoyed the looks of this car, but your writeup has really given me a deep appreciation for it.

I was curious about how I'd take the design in person before the test drive. It definitely has its share of awkward angles, but it looks distinctive and unusual enough that I liked it overall.

Boaz MacPhereson posted:

Please wrap it in a JPS livery
I've thought about this. I think the silver rocker panels would have to come off? My concern is that the fiberglass is so fragile (anywhere you press hard enough, you can hear the bodywork flexing and ticking) that it'd take more damage and require a touchup and repaint once the wrap came off.


Seat Safety Switch posted:

Washer fluid bags used to be really common on older domestic cars, so I'm sure in Lotus' case it wasn't so much "let's save weight" as "let's be lazy as poo poo and pull one off a different production line."

http://www.allpar.com/history/memories/washer-bag.html
I checked and saw that the Elan used either a bag or a bottle, depending on model. Tudor is a major British supplier?
I wish my bag had those brass grommets around the hanger holes -- just plastic makes me not want to fill it up high.

Seat Safety Switch
May 27, 2008

MY RELIGION IS THE SMALL BLOCK V8 AND COMMANDMENTS ONE THROUGH TEN ARE NEVER LIFT.

Pillbug
There are a lot of aftermarket suppliers who sell new washer bags, since as you can imagine they burst in the winter when people filled them with summer fluid and they froze. Not sure if you want to sacrifice the originality of the car for it, though. I guess you could put the original bag in a closet somewhere.

You could also install something like a Cappuccino windshield washer reservoir, which the Miata crowd loves because the whole assembly tucks into the windshield cowl.

https://www.flyinmiata.com/suzuki-cappuccino-washer-bottle.html

Waffle House
Oct 27, 2004

You follow the path
fitting into an infinite pattern.

Yours to manipulate, to destroy and rebuild.

Now, in the quantum moment
before the closure
when all become one.

One moment left.
One point of space and time.

I know who you are.

You are Destiny.


Lotus seems to love to make engines and transmissions load bearing.

Preoptopus
Aug 25, 2008

Три полоски,
три по три полоски
Lol the fluid "reservoir" had me dying. And it's not fiber glass it's plastic composites! :science:

kimbo305
Jun 9, 2007

actually, yeah, I am a little mad
Yeah, the service manual calls it GFRP everywhere.

charliemonster42 posted:

There's one of these in a delightful (?) 70's brown running around my town every now and then. I never gave it a second look until recently and they seem like an absolute riot. However, at 6'3" with a 32-34" inseam, I don't think I'd fit :smith:

yeah, that's a lot of torso. I have some headroom, but it's very tight. Will cover in the interior tour.

InitialDave
Jun 14, 2007

I Want To Believe.

kimbo305 posted:

I checked and saw that the Elan used either a bag or a bottle, depending on model. Tudor is a major British supplier?
Yes, it's a common brand for that era. You see them on old Fords a fair bit.

The thing about Lotus and other small British companies is that drat near all the little bullshit components comes from somewhere else, it's just a case of knowing where.

Looks like it has a remote servo on the brakes, is that standard fit?

kimbo305
Jun 9, 2007

actually, yeah, I am a little mad

InitialDave posted:

Looks like it has a remote servo on the brakes, is that standard fit?

I believe so, though the seller deactivated any brake boosting in favor of manual power. It's a bit mushy in the top half, but braking power seems fine.

You Am I
May 20, 2001

Me @ your poasting

kimbo305 posted:


Yes, the drive axle is also the top link in a trailing arm setup. A CV joint wouldn't be able to handle that kind of shear load?
Jaguar from the early 60s to I think the early 2000s used the drive axle as a top link in their rear suspension. It seemed to handle a V12 load in a big boat pretty well.

InitialDave
Jun 14, 2007

I Want To Believe.

You Am I posted:

Jaguar from the early 60s to I think the early 2000s used the drive axle as a top link in their rear suspension. It seemed to handle a V12 load in a big boat pretty well.
He means the axial load through the driveshaft when acting as a suspension arm, rather than the rotational drive load.

kimbo305
Jun 9, 2007

actually, yeah, I am a little mad
Chassis design

Part of why the Europa is unsafe by current standards is because it has a very minimalist "backbone" chassis. Everything that would be a crash structure in a modern car is just fiberglass.

But first, let's look at the chassis of the Elan:

FR car with a modified Chapman strut rear suspension. In this case, the drive axle doesn't fix the suspension path nor act as a suspension link like in a true Chapman -- that's done by the strut/hub and the lower wishbone.

At the time, Colin Chapman had made the call to derive race cars from road cars, and he also wanted to save costs, so the backbone chassis ended up being the cost-conscious solution.

No less a critic than LJK Setright pointed out that sparing all that extra metal to let the strut stand upright for proper camber change was very un-Lotus. The design worked better in a space frame or unibody design.

But basically you have a metal Y cradling the engine and holding the wheels. The original Elan backbone weighed 75lbs, and for the time was very torsionally rigid. And in 2017, not much substance. It's definitely in the back of my head as I drive around. If the Europa were an A-wing aiming for the bridge of that Star Destroyer, it would probably just crumble against the glass.

Now a Europa backbone in the same orientation, but with drive direction and suspension reversed:

Note the lack of speed holes on the backbone, which is a mere 6"x10" on the main spine.

The front is still double wishbone (and still from a Triumph Herald), but now on the other end of the Y. The rear is a Chapman strut with that really long stamped radius arm going to the fork of the Y. The radius arms limit the wheels from yawing under movement from the motor/transaxle, which were mounted on rubber for NVH reasons.

Still, that's a lot of space wasted to the motion of the radius arm that can't be used. Though it would be a pretty narrow volume. The gas tanks sit outboard of that arm.

In the S1 Europas, they bonded the fiberglass shells to the backbone. When one or the other rotted, it made it infeasible to repair. S2s wisely left them unglued.


The backbone is subject to rust (I bought this Europa partly because it is incedibly clean on the bottom) and wearing out, so there are aftermarket options. Both Spyder and Banks make tube frame chassis.

Spyder offers different mount points for various engine/trans combos, which would be nice when you're shopping for other upgrades during the restoration. But these are really only cost effective in England, given the cost of shipping the frame.

Or... you could make your own. I hesitated linking this because it's still not done, but there's plenty of meat:
https://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=15703&sid=8a03bba61cbf861da94a88805eef836d
The OP cribbed the Spyder design but fabbed the frame himself, and also did the fiberglass restoration. Maybe the most impressive is the fabbed sheet metal uprights.
Lots of good AI morning coffee reading in there. A preview:



As for how to prep the chassis for racing, what did you expect -- basically turn it back into a tube frame:
http://www.lotus-europa.com/manuals/misc/jensen.pdf
Very nice of them to share their recipe.

kimbo305 fucked around with this message at 08:25 on Jun 23, 2017

You Am I
May 20, 2001

Me @ your poasting

InitialDave posted:

He means the axial load through the driveshaft when acting as a suspension arm, rather than the rotational drive load.

I understand, thus why I also added the weight of Jags of that era.

BigPaddy
Jun 30, 2008

That night we performed the rite and opened the gate.
Halfway through, I went to fix us both a coke float.
By the time I got back, he'd gone insane.
Plus, he'd left the gate open and there was evil everywhere.


Driving that through Boston should get you some kind of huge balls award.

CAT INTERCEPTOR
Nov 9, 2004

Basically a male Margaret Thatcher
I thnk I still have the after pictures of a Europa after it slammed a wall at a rack track in the early 90's..... now I know why the driver got carted to hospital. Dear Lord even for Chapman that chassis.......!

You are on hell of a brave man

Disgruntled Bovine
Jul 5, 2010

I hope you drive that thing like you're on a motorcycle, because from a visibility and impact protection standpoint, you are.

InitialDave
Jun 14, 2007

I Want To Believe.

kimbo305 posted:

Now a Europa backbone in the same orientation, but with drive direction and suspension reversed:

CAT INTERCEPTOR posted:

Dear Lord even for Chapman that chassis.......!
Do you want to :spergin: about the forward pivot of the lower rear trailing arms, or shall I?

You Am I posted:

I understand, thus why I also added the weight of Jags of that era.
I think we're talking at cross purposes. You're mentioning the Jaguar's in reference to whether CV joints would work for such a suspension, but the Jaguars aren't CV joints in that suspension design.

CommieGIR
Aug 22, 2006

The blue glow is a feature, not a bug


Pillbug

kimbo305 posted:

Have you ever wondered how you could trim some weight off a wiper fluid reservoir? Well, how bout making it a bag?:


Oh good, colostomy bags are making a comeback in the automotive world

Love the thread and the English smoke generator!

kimbo305
Jun 9, 2007

actually, yeah, I am a little mad

InitialDave posted:

Do you want to :spergin: about the forward pivot of the lower rear trailing arms, or shall I?

I wanna hear it. Dive/squat problems from its pivot position? How it weakens and pulls out of the backbone? Their construction?

InitialDave
Jun 14, 2007

I Want To Believe.
It's a bit of a rubbish :spergin: TBH, but just something that has really annoyed me since I heard about it due to being interested in DeLoreans.

They used a fairly small diameter (7/16") bolt in single shear into a metalastic bushing in the chassis as the pivot. The bolt itself is unnumbered, but see the areas of components 1, 2, 3 in this image:



It's not actually that bad in such a light car, but they used a very similar design in the Esprit, and then in the DeLorean, so you're getting heavier there, which probably contributes to why they seem to have a reputation for bending/breaking on those.

People seem to sometimes "solve" this by going overkill on the bolt material, but really, it's a problem that shouldn't have existed. They could have made a bracket with the bush axial onto the front end of the trailing arm and a big flanged nut/washer on it, or they could have engineered a small bracket to make it a double-shear mount and had the bushing in the end of the trailing arm. Hell, for the latter, they could probably have bought in bolt-on leaf spring cast mounting hangers from a light commercial to do the job easily.

But instead they hung it out there in the breeze on that 7/16" bolt and it's just wrong to me, and something that would cost very little (in cash or added weight) to get more "right", especially when making heavier vehicles. I'm not normally one to get too worked up about the whole "single shear is baaaaad, man", because it's often still nailed together well enough to be a moot point, but, well, I look at that example and I don't bloody like it.

You'll notice that on both the replacement chasis you've pictured, it's one "feature" that's straight out the window.

InitialDave fucked around with this message at 10:51 on Jun 24, 2017

You Am I
May 20, 2001

Me @ your poasting

InitialDave posted:

I think we're talking at cross purposes. You're mentioning the Jaguar's in reference to whether CV joints would work for such a suspension, but the Jaguars aren't CV joints in that suspension design.
Ah, my bad

kimbo305
Jun 9, 2007

actually, yeah, I am a little mad

InitialDave posted:

or they could have engineered a small bracket to make it a double-shear mount and had the bushing in the end of the trailing arm. Hell, for the latter, they could probably have bought in bolt-on leaf spring cast mounting hangers from a light commercial to do the job easily.

Would that potentially place more stress on the parts of the plate where the bracket is bolted in? Compared to the (maybe) wider spaced bolts around the bushing?
I'm only excusing the shear design insofar as I'm trusting it to keep me alive.

InitialDave
Jun 14, 2007

I Want To Believe.

kimbo305 posted:

Would that potentially place more stress on the parts of the plate where the bracket is bolted in? Compared to the (maybe) wider spaced bolts around the bushing?
I'm only excusing the shear design insofar as I'm trusting it to keep me alive.
Not really, if you look, the bushing is attached with 2 bolts to the chassis, so any issues of it ripping out the mounting would be present with the current design. You could make the bracket attach how you wished if custom designed, and if buying in somethint like a bolt-on leaf spring mount bracket, the spacing of the mounting holes of the bracket probably aren't any closer than the bushing they used.

This is the kind of bracket I mean, this is a folded/stamped one from a Ford F150 I believe:

GentlemanofLeisure
Aug 27, 2008
I love your threads because I always learn so much about the cars. I bet this car's fun as hell to drive, have fun!

kimbo305
Jun 9, 2007

actually, yeah, I am a little mad
Comparison with a normal car:

It's not that short, but it's so low and the motor takes up so much space that the cabin is really cramped.

InitialDave posted:

any issues of it ripping out the mounting would be present with the current design. You could make the bracket attach how you wished if custom designed, and if buying in somethint like a bolt-on leaf spring mount bracket, the spacing of the mounting holes of the bracket probably aren't any closer than the bushing they used.

Yeah, I knew the bushing had the big bolts on the side. But looking at that bracket, seems like pretty of contact area.

everdave
Nov 14, 2005
Crazy perspective photo. My wife thinks the new Prius is so small and that is why randomly one of the kids is getting car sick. Compared to the 92 accord she was toted around in from birth it's practically twice as tall.

kimbo305
Jun 9, 2007

actually, yeah, I am a little mad
I wanted to get better interior pics today, but the weather is threatening rain.

Some contemporary review pointed out that the.. pontoons trailing behind the headlamps give a very 911esque view of the fenders from the cockpit. I've only drive older 911s for a couple of test drives, but the resemblance is there.

That steering wheel looks slightly misshapen, because it is. When I first tried to slide my seat forward on the rails, I pulled on the wheel like I would in any other car. And instead of being moving forward, I simply flexed the wheel back toward me, like a few inches. Like with most things in the car, the wheel feels very delicate. I'm 70/30 on changing it to something beefier. Steering effort is very light, so you don't need to grip the whole wheel. Grasping by your fingertips/first knuckles is enough once the car is moving.

To spray the wipers, you push inward on the right stalk. The center of the wheel is not the horn button -- you honk by pressing inward on the left (not shown) stalk.

To turn on the headlamps, you twist that LIGHTS knob clockwise and then pull out. Surprisingly, if you leave the lights on with the key out of the ignition, you'll actually get a warning buzz.
The PO converted the headlamps to halogens running on their own circuit. The factory design is to send juice through the dash to power the lights, which I hope satisfies everyone expectations of period British carmaking. The turn signals are still like that, and I definitely think about it when signalling turns.


On the center console flanking the ashtray are the two window switches. The electric motors are pretty noisy, but the windows go up and down pretty quickly, unlike in the 348.
The shift knob is wooden and a bit faded, but grips nicely in the hand. Much more about the shifting ergonomics later.
The PO put in the Becker Europa as a joke -- it's the right vintage to be in the car, but not the stock radio.
I'm not sure what that knob below the PANEL switch is. I'll ask the PO at some point.
And instead of a glovebox, it's just a glove cubby.

Closeup of the peeling wood veneer:

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kimbo305
Jun 9, 2007

actually, yeah, I am a little mad
In November 1972, Lotus brought this concept to the Turin Motor Show:


It was built on a modified Europa backbone, and filled the same grand touring slot in Lotus' lineup.

The Europa ran for 9 years, and the Esprit would go on for 29 over 2 major restyles.
But it blows my mind that there was a time when the Europa was selling and the public was demanding the S1 Esprit. The two are so different in styling that they feel more than 1 generation apart. A similar design changing of the guard happened with the '73 Elan to the '74 Eclat/Elite.

I'm trying to think of any other model year changeup like that. The '85 Ford LTD to '86 Ford Taurus?

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