Lotus Heritage Centre and Museum
Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2018 4:04 pm
For those of you who have not seen the announcement from last week regarding the future plans for the Hethel real estate, please see: https://vintageracecar.com/lotus-to-bui ... ge-center/
I for one am very encouraged that at last Lotus will be joining other sports car manufacturers, as well as some mass producers like Mazda, in providing a centre for enthusiasts, historians and researchers, where the history of the firm and examples of the cars can be studied, enjoyed and cherished by future generations.
With Classic Team Lotus concentrating on the race cars, I hope that the new Heritage Centre will concentrate more on the road cars. Additionally, I would hope that it acts as an archive, where enthusiasts will feel happy donating appropriate ephemera and other interesting Lotus related objets de voiture. I have visited both the Frazer Nash Archives and the Bugatti Trust, both hugely valuable resources to owners and historians, yet run mostly by volunteers and on charitable donations. Their constant fear is of running out of funding, which must be worrying.
My final point about the proposal, is that I hope the Heritage Centre and Museum can be established as a charitable trust, supported financially by Lotus, yet one that can not be sold off by some future owner of the brand. We saw that happen when the then Lotus museum car collection was sold off in 1998 by Proton, merely to generate cash. It should not have been allowed to do so, in my view.
Tim
I for one am very encouraged that at last Lotus will be joining other sports car manufacturers, as well as some mass producers like Mazda, in providing a centre for enthusiasts, historians and researchers, where the history of the firm and examples of the cars can be studied, enjoyed and cherished by future generations.
With Classic Team Lotus concentrating on the race cars, I hope that the new Heritage Centre will concentrate more on the road cars. Additionally, I would hope that it acts as an archive, where enthusiasts will feel happy donating appropriate ephemera and other interesting Lotus related objets de voiture. I have visited both the Frazer Nash Archives and the Bugatti Trust, both hugely valuable resources to owners and historians, yet run mostly by volunteers and on charitable donations. Their constant fear is of running out of funding, which must be worrying.
My final point about the proposal, is that I hope the Heritage Centre and Museum can be established as a charitable trust, supported financially by Lotus, yet one that can not be sold off by some future owner of the brand. We saw that happen when the then Lotus museum car collection was sold off in 1998 by Proton, merely to generate cash. It should not have been allowed to do so, in my view.
Tim