Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Lotus World always contained interesting snippets of what was happening at Lotus at the time 'our' cars were being built. Back copies should be in the public domain. I do not have many copies - well, one actually - but if anyone else has them, please share.

Tim

Whilst researching Lotus Cortinas I've got to know a chap who has collected a vast archive of Lotus stuff over the past 40 years. I thought that I was bad, but his collection dwarfs mine!! The chap has Lotus World and Lotus News going back to 1956.....not complete runs, but a lot of them. I'll see if I can borrow them and scan them all in.

Totally agree, they should be in the public domain, and the guy with the archive feels the same way about Lotus information.

Trouble is that his collection of these magazines is about a foot thick....a structured website would be more appropriate to be able to file, index and retieve, rather that create the biggest topic in a forum of all time!

But let's see what everybody can contribute first.

Mark

This was the one printed for the 1970 motor show...the only thing I got from the Lotus stand, I seem to remember!!

Mark

Page 1 of Tim's edition mentions that the Plus 2 has a 'camera compartment'! - where's that?

Great articles - thanks for posting Tim

Robbie

Camera compartment = glove box = where you keep the handbook and service vouchers, plus an eleven year old road atlas missing several pages, a comb with many teeth missing and half a packet of mints!

Tim

Ah of course! Because no one keeps gloves in it, although there are a pair in my lady's Mini!

Also maglight for finding out what just broke!

Robbie

Tim / Mark

I was shocked to see that most of your Lotus literature mentioned the "C" word.

Yes, the one that we must keep hidden from the DVLA !!

This literature is dynamite and could mean big trouble for us all if we ever replace our chassis, oops, I mean sub-frame. This literature should be locked away from ever becoming public domain material surely!

Ian

Not to much Elan stuff but Lotus made other cars too
more L.W. to come if interested.

Brian

Thank you so much, I enjoyed reading that. Please do post more if you don't mind, they provide a terrific resource.

I was impressed to see that one of the wages clerks could provide Lotus factory loaded shotgun cartridges for the gun club!

Tim

trw99 wrote:Brian Thank you so much, I enjoyed reading that. Please do post more if you don't mind, they provide a terrific resource. I was impressed to see that one of the wages clerks could provide Lotus factory loaded shotgun cartridges for the gun club!
Tim

I second that. Great reading.

Cheers - Richard

P.S. Wonder if the Gun Club was inspiration for the shooting brake conversions.....?

trw99 wrote:could provide Lotus factory loaded shotgun cartridges for the gun club!Tim

Yes, wonder if the cartridges were loaded by "Lotus Components" ...had a Type number and a "Special" option ...i.e. 38 Special

Re the Mags, I also have several "Lotus News" of the same era which seemed to be aimed more at the staff, dealers and personnel then the public, after the L.W. and given time I may post these.....it just takes a bit of time with the scanning and resizing.

I must be accumulating too much Lotus stuff. I had forgotten I had 3-4 Lotus Worlds! Here's the first one, especially for Alex!

Tim

Much as we might like to think that these old magazines are 'in the public domain' they almost certainly are NOT.

Copyright lasts until 70 years after the death of the author. In the case of a magazine it was probably assigned to the magazine publisher. So unless it was explicitly declared to be public domain it still belongs to someone.

Unfortunately when magazines go bust, declaring that stuff is public domain is the last thing on their mind.

In the UK when a Ltd company is dissolved its remaining assets belong to The Crown, so unless the copyrights were specifically assigned elsewhere then I guess that the copyright of orphaned magazines now belongs to the Crown, which is not the same as "being in the public domain".

[quote="billwill"]
In the UK when a Ltd company is dissolved its remaining assets belong to The Crown, quote]

Oh dear.....it looks like Tim,Mark and myself will be sharing a cell then

billwill wrote:Much as we might like to think that these old magazines are 'in the public domain' they almost certainly are NOT.

Oh dear Bill

It looks as if my attempt at being ironic has missed the mark by a mile. When I mentioned the "C" word I was referring to "CHASSIS". I was trying to subtly point out that the Lotus literature referred to the steel backbone as a chassis whilst we now like to refer to it as a sub-frame, especially when conversing with the DVLA.

I promise not to try and be funny in the future

Best regards
Ian