1973 | Lotus Elan Plus 2S 130

This is an online-only auction by Bonhams|Cars Online (www.bonhamscarsonline.com). The price shown is the lower estimate. To see more details, read the full description and see 200+ photographs & video please visit our website. It is free to Register an account and bid. There is no Buy it Now or part-exchange. Here is a brief excerpt taken from the auction description:

To say that the original Lotus Elan redefined the genre is something of an understatement. Sure, we’d had small sporty convertibles for decades before it but the Elan demonstrated that a sportscar could be more than the sum of its parts - and that power could (and probably should…) take second place to handling.

Because the little Lotus handled like nothing before and, many would argue, since: the Elan was the world’s first production car to feature a steel backbone chassis and a fibreglass body, which made for a beautifully stiff chassis. This allowed the suspension to be soft, to have a relatively long travel, and to be perfectly damped – and all this at a time when marketing departments were still insisting (some still do…) that a ‘sporty’ car must be stiffly sprung.

The steering was also light and precise, the opposite of more traditional car manufacturers for whom heavy steering used to - and for some insecure souls, still does – equal manliness.

The result is the sweetest handling car of a generation; no wonder the Mazda MX-5, famously closely modelled on the Elan, went on to become the world’s best-selling sportscar…

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