Catch up on all the Club Lotus Australia news down in Tassie, thanks to the latest from John Barrass.
By John Barrass
It’s Winter here in Tassie but we don’t let that stop us and on the Lotus front there have been a few happenings.
On the cars coming and going front, I have brought back a 1968 Type 51 FF from Queensland and another two early Elites have been unearthed here, see museum news below for details on one of them.
The National Automobile Museum of Tasmania, where I am a volunteer one day a month, has a themed exhibit that changes every three months and from mid-September until mid-December the Theme is “Lotus Engineered to Win”. We have ten cars on loan from the owners to display in the theme area this time.
- 1962 Elite – This was unearthed when looking for suitable cars for display and lives only 10 kilometers from Launceston. The owner has had it for a long time now and brought it over from the UK with him. It is currently nearing the end of its renovation, a very interesting car to suddenly appear and the owner is a real enthusiast for both Lotus and Aston Martin. Details have been sent to Asthon and I shared the last CC with the owner Duncan as it had a feature on the Big Elite reunion scheduled for next year.
- 1967 Elan S3 Coupe (belonging to my wife Paula)
- 1970 Elan Plus 2S (Utterly superb car and easy concourse winner in every detail, currently for sale)
- 1970 Lotus Twin Cam Escort
- 1972 Europa
- 2002 – Elise
- 2009 Westfield Eleven – With no Original Elevens in Tassie we really did not want this significant model to be unrepresented in the display, and the Westfield on loan is a real beauty that is actively campaigned down here
- 1968 Lotus 51A Formula Ford
- 1970 Lotus Seven S4
- 1989 Lotus Esprit Turbo
Thanks go also to our good friends at Simply Sports Cars who have enthusiastically assisted us with the display and provided us with one of the 4-metre long Lotus History Banners designed by Zed to display with the theme.
If you are visiting Tasmania over the period that display runs for, please drop in and take a look. The Museum also has a great selection of other vehicles on display – Aston Martin DBSZ or Alfa Romeo 6C anyone?
The Baskerville Historic Racing event was run in conditions of torrential rain and flooding over three days from 30th of September, and despite the terrible conditions the teams and drivers put on a great show.
Lotus Club Queensland member Graeme Vaughan was there running his very actively campaigned Elan S4 Coupe, which he has run in the last two Targa Tas events as well. Thanks to a stroke of luck Graeme scored one of the garage marquees that was on bitumen and out of the mud and flooding, which had him and Anne looking very relaxed and dry while others plodded through the mud.
There were also a couple of Lotus Cortinas and Lotus Twin Cam powered Anglias. It was, in spite of the weather, a good meeting and well attended by spectators, some of whom were bogged up to the floor pan in the spectator parks – and that was the 4 wheel drives! All part of a memorable family day out.
It was also a handy meeting for me as Graeme had parked next to a local from Launceston running a historic Swift FF and after a chat with the owner of that, I now have contacts in the state to help me in maintaining the Hewland H6 in my new 51A and for repairing a couple of small spots on the fibreglass belly pan.
Can’t wait for Lotus 2017!
Cheers from Tassie – JBee
