In the 60s, Henry Ford II’s main objective was to beat Ferrari at Le Mans. In order to do that, he needed a purpose built car to take down the Italians. Ron Hickman and Colin Chapman of Lotus quickly put together a design to propose to Ford, and wanted partial naming rights to call the car a Lotus-Ford. However, Ford wanted exclusive branding of the GT race car. Ultimately, Lola was given the contract to build the would-be Ford GT, leaving Lotus with a mid-engine design of its own, the Europa.
Built from 1966 to 1975, Lotus produced just short of 10,000 Europas in total spanning 5 generations. The latest Motorcar Studio project is a 1969 Series 2 example.
The Series 2 was offered with a small list of creature comforts over earlier models. Things like adjustable seats, electric windows, and a wooden dashboard were now standard kit on the Lotus.
The 1565cc Renault engine is very peppy and more than happy to rev on up past 6,000 rpm. This car has a little ways to go in terms of restoring it to it’s former light-and-agile glory, but it is already winning our hearts around the shop.