Andrew Jones was present at our first social event on the 29th of July, 1973, and recently contacted us with his memories from the day. His story adds a wonderful warmth and colour to the photos we have, so we thought we’d share it with you here!

If you have photos or recollections from events throughout Club Lotus history, please drop us a line at [email protected]. We’d love to share them with the club!

The following recollections are kindly shared by Andrew Jones.

“I was looking through the Club Lotus website today and came across the photo of the first outing in Sydney in 1973.  To my surprise, there are a number of remarkably familiar aspects of the photo.”

“The small boy with his father is none other than yours truly.  My father, Mike Jones, owned the ex – Moss Angliss S2 Super Seven.  You can see the small aero-screen on the car from its racing heritage days.  We kept the car for some years, after which Bill Wade bought it and he subsequently did a restoration.  The car is featured in its restored condition in the ‘Lotus Seven’ book  I think written by Ortenburger.”

“If my memory serves me correctly, the S3 FHC elan in the foreground belonged to Ian ???, the Elite is possibly Adrian Shaeggan’s pre-restoration, the seven is ours, the + 2 I think is Owen Wullerman’s, the S4 Elan – either Clive Bendons or Bill Wade’s and the MK II Lotus Cortina is Steve Fryer’s.  I think Steve would confirm he was running a 1665 cc Twin Cam with Cosworth L1s in those days.  I remember it was a really quick car and driven accordingly.”

“I feel I must share a brief story about the next part of the day.  The gathering got a little larger than this photo, with David & Susan Levy arriving in his Alfa Spider, another +2 and several other Elans and Europas.  I remember them because I’d never seen one before.”

“We set off for Camden museum at a cracking pace – first outing and all, and I now realise this was actually the first official leg ever driven.  The competitive spirit was no doubt running pretty high and I have no idea how quick some cars were traveling, however – I can tell you the Seven and Elite didn’t have the legs to keep up with the Europas, Elans and Steve’s Mk II. “

“When we arrived at the museum, engines and exhausts could clearly be heard cooling in the car park and that magnificent smell of hot oil, hot engines and brakes, some cars were running racing fuel – so a bit of that avgas fume scent, and generally hot Lotus cars.  Everyone had enjoyed the leg and it was bloody brilliant for a boy of 11 years old. “

“After almost two hours in the museum, we returned to the cars for lunch  – only to observe Steve’s Cortina still had faint wisps of smoke curling from the exhaust. A testament to the effort the cars had made in getting to Camden. Even more impressive to the 11 year old boy.”

“Dad bought Steve’s MK II some years later and then sold it back to him in the 80s.  I used it as my first car and it spent a year in 1980 hidden behind Barker College when I was a yr 12 boarder.  It was fabulous for getting from my girlfriend’s 1st hockey fixture to my Rugby fixture on time in the days before speed cameras and mobile radar.  My father is now in his 80s and he and Steve are still great friends.”