Beschreibung:

The Lotus Europa is a two door mid-engined GT coupé manufactured from 1966 to 1975. In 2006 Lotus began production of a totally new, Lotus Elise-derived design, a mid-engined GT coupé named Europa S. The original Europa used Lotus's founder Colin Chapman's minimalist steel backbone chassis that was first used in the Lotus Elan whilst also relying on fibreglass moulded body for structural strength. The Europa was based on a prototype built to compete for Henry Ford II's contract to build a Le Mans racer in the early 1960's. The four-wheel independent suspension was typical of Chapman's thinking as the rear suspension was a modified Chapman strut and was used for his early Formula racing car designs. The forward radius arms were increased in size and rigidity to act as a semi-wishbone. The car's handling prompted automotive writers to describe the Europa as the nearest thing to a Formula car for the road. This 1970 Lotus Europa S2 has only had two owners from new with the vendor purchasing it in 1978. In the 1980's ,the car was the subject to a complete restoration including repainting the car in the original Lotus F1 'Gold Leaf' cigarette colours of red over white with gold pin-stripping. This Lotus Europa is in excellent running condition and has been fully maintained throughout its life, YYP 488H is supplied with a V5C registration document, an MoT test certificate which expires in April 2015 and a very comprehensive history file which includes photographs of the restoration. Lotus cars are extremely undervalued considering the racing pedigree that they come from but we are sure that this will be addressed in the years to come.