LOTUS

Elite

A total of 1,030 LOTUS Elite (Type 14) have been produced on earth in the United Kingdom between 1957 and 1963. The Lotus Elite, Colin Chapman's Type 14, is one of the most technically radical cars ever put into series production. Revealed at the London Motor Show at Earls Court in October 1957, the Lotus Elite was the world's first car with a fibreglass monocoque: not a fibreglass body dropped onto a steel frame as on the contemporary Chevrolet Corvette, but a load-bearing structure in which the glass-reinforced plastic shell itself carried every stress, with steel only where the suspension and engine mounted. The result weighed roughly 1,205 lb (546 kg) and slipped through the air with a drag coefficient of 0.29 — a figure most cars would not match for another thirty years. Power came from a 1,216 cc Coventry Climax FWE all-alloy four, and Chapman's chassis genius did the rest: the Lotus Elite won its class at Le Mans six times between 1959 and 1964. Peter Kirwan-Taylor styled the body, with aerodynamic input from Frank Costin, and the purity of the shape has never dated. It was also, commercially, a disaster. The Series 1 cars, with shells built by Maximar Mouldings, suffered chronic structural cracking and noise; 281 were made before Bristol took over production for the 749 Series 2 cars. Lotus reportedly lost money on every one. When production ended in 1963 just 1,030 examples of the Lotus Elite had been built, of which perhaps 400 survive. It nearly bankrupted Lotus — and it remains the most beautiful thing Colin Chapman ever signed off. Upgrades & evolutions during the Lotus Elite production: LOTUS - Elite Series 1 (Maximar-moulded shells, 281 built) : 1958 - 1960 LOTUS - Elite Series 2 (Bristol-built shells, 749 built) : 1960 - 1963 LOTUS - Elite Super 95 / Super 100 / Super 105 (competition tune) : 1960 - 1963 Average quotation for the Lotus Elite: cheapest US$50,000, average US$48,000, most expensive US$150,000 (listings and auction results, 2021 and 2026). ESTIMATED range. Surviving cars (around 400) are valued at roughly US$50,000-150,000 depending on condition and competition history; the avgprice on file (US$48,000) sits at the bottom of that range.