The Lost Lotus: Restoring a Race Car

[elansprint71]

I am still not quite sure what the restorers were seeking to achieve with this important car. When it appeared at the October 1957 Earls Court show the prototype show car was painted silver with a gun-metal roof (and dark coral pink wheel wells). It was fitted with the normal chrome bumpers. it was on display at Hornsea for several months, before being broken up, only the stainless steel trim items being saved. I think the Barber car was at Earls court in 1958 but can't find a photo.

The first two " production" cars (actually the first dozen cars were built at Edmonton, before the Hornsea factory was ready) were sold on 31st December 1958, over a year on from the Earls Court debut. Chassis 1009 went to Chris Barber and 1010 to Ian Scott Watson.

The Barber car, subject of this restoration, raced firstly with s/s bumpers and normal frontal air intake with registration CB 23 fixed to the grille; at some point the bumpers and indicators were removed and the lateral joint bulge across the front of the car was faired in and a small version of the Costin air-intake replaced (smaller than on the DADIO car) the normal aperture. The Barber team raced it in this configuration for most of it's time with them, afaik.
For some reason the restorers chose to put back the original standard air intake and indicators but not the bumpers, thereby "re-creating" a front end configuration which I'm not sure was ever raced by Barber (I can't find any photos of it with the standard air-intake but without bumpers) although many other cars did race in that format. It was pretty obvious that Anstead had no idea about the Costin nose, or at what point it was fitted to 1009, thus was a piece of history destroyed and a look-alike created!

[billwill]

>maybe even on the low side.

Well it was actuall ?40K plus 1/3 of any profit on the sale after renovation.

[JohnP]

For anyone who still hasn't seen it (me) the programme is now up on All4 Catchup TV.

A lovely looking Elite needing what appears to be not much more than re-commissioning sold on BaT a couple of weeks ago at US$44K. I wish I'd had the courage to press the buy button when my wife wasn't looking!

[Mazzini]

Was that the white S1 Elite? I thought that went for $55,500? I think once into the Elite you maybe unpleasantly surprised at how expensive they can be...I have one...

[JohnP]

You are probably right. Rose tinted spectacles affected my memory and exchange rate calcs!

regarding ownership/ re-commissioning costs - they also helped me from pressing the 'buy' button.

[Mazzini]

regarding ownership/ re-commissioning costs - they also helped me from pressing the 'buy' button.

I wish I were that smart