And where you can’t repair it easily! A friend bought a TVR, on his first MOT found that the “new outriggers” were a botch, and the seat belts, which should have been mounted through the fibreglass shell and into the outriggers, weren’t - they were just mounted into the fibreglass. Body has to come off chassis, new outriggers put on (and any other work while you are about it) - then remount body. What fun! I often wonder about the caterhams etc in this respect, and had a good look at a Quantum H4 before buying the MX5. lovely little car, ingenious (and easy) roof - but the steel work is encased in the fibreglass shell, as far as I could make out. And water builds-up in the cavities that contain the steelwork. So I figured for a daily driver, Winter salt and all, maybe not …
Well there was of course the Lotus Elite (type14) that used a Glass fibre monocoque, with a steel sub frame for the engine. No chassis to rust but did have a bit of a problem with suspension pick up points pulling out (the infamous Lotus “spontaneous disassembly”
I seem to remember reading that one of the problems with some of the new composite constructions is that if accident damaged, a new shell is required as they cannot be repaired to an acceptable standard except at the works.
From discussions with friends who work in the industry there are rumours that this may be applied to more ordinary vehicles. The premise is that damage, and subsequent repair to the unitary body structure would affect the way it behaves in a crash.
I wonder if the fact that this would result in more scrapped cars and a need to replace them would have anything to do with it
One of my favourite cars is the Scimitar GTE 5/5a, which I’ve had three of, but it had a built in roll cage which rusted and caused the fibreglass to crack, also had a Scimitar SS and the body panels had so many gaps it was awful. Fibreglass is quite good in an accident though, got rear ended by a Volvo (one of the smaller ones) the front of the Volvo looked as if it had been hit by a truck whereas my Scimitar just needed a bottom valance, nice solid chassis beneath that. I think maybe a MX5 built with all alloy panels but not fibreglass.
This was on the earlier Mk1 cars, I had a series 2 SE S95 for 2 years did over 50k miles with very few problems. If you think a '5 puts a grin on your face, the Elite did it in spades
I wondered if anyone would get confused, which is why I put the type no.
The Elite you are I think referring to would be a type 83, with the Mk1
being the Type 75 (The Eclat was the 76 and 84 repectively.
The type 14 Elite was introduced in 1957 and won several index of performce awards
at Le-Mans. It was also raced with some degree of success –DAD 10 being the
most well known.
I have a friend who sprints an Elan +2 (very
succesfully) and has recently purchased an Esprit with a V8 which is going to
be turned into a 49B or 62 replica and discussions on Lotus history are a fairly common
occurrence
Les Leston’s old car, I remember he won the GT championship in , I think, 1961 in that one. I sprinted and hill climbed mine in Northumberland and the Scottish borders, Croft, Fintray Hill in Edinburgh and at the aerodrome where Jim Clark started out, Brunton airfield, just north of Alnwick…happy days
Interestingly, while not a road car, the white Mk3 race car in the picture below has all fibreglass panels (bumpers, bonnet, bootlid, doors, side skirts and front wings)
TheEMX5 is largely based (beyondbespok parts) on the MazdaGLC and FCRex.Lotus’ “contribution” isno moreimportant thanthe other carsMazda lukedat, including theoriginalFairlady.The MX5does notstandin the shadowof hethal.Itsachieved farmur gratenessthan the Elan everdid.
The MX5 wasn’t based on the Elan. The idea of the MX5 was just that of a lightweight 2-seater convertible sportscar in the typically British tradition of small, lightweight & simple. It’s no more based on the Elan than is is on the Spitfire, MGB, Stag etc. It just happens to look a fair bit like an Elan.
