Wandering through a well-hidden treasure trove of classic sports and racing cars in the Pacific Northwest a decade ago, we encountered this dusty Lotus Mk. XI, more commonly spelled out (for reasons we'll reveal later) as Lotus Eleven. You might think this is going to lead to another in our Forgotten Classics series, but actually, the Lotus Eleven was such a successful car that Colin Chapman's workshops produced 270 of them from 1956 through 1958. That's a lot for a car focused on racing, and the Eleven was never really forgotten by car enthusiasts. In fact, it was so well-remembered that in the Eighties, England's Westfield Sportscars began offering fiberglass-bodied replicas of the cars. In the Lotus spirit (one is tempted to say "esprit"), Westfield also offered these as kits. What was so special about the Eleven that, as with the Shelby AC Cobra, replicas outnumber originals?
Well, my dusty copy of the Road & Track 1958 Road Test Annual tells the performance story, as it features a test of the top-line Climax 1100 FWA-engined, 4-wheel disc-braked, independently suspended (De Dion rear) Lotus Eleven Le Mans, as well as what would be today called the "entry level" Lotus Sport, with Ford 1.2 liter side-valve four, drum brakes and live rear axle. The test Eleven Le Mans weighed 1,000 pounds dry (with oil and water but no fuel) and 1,360 lb. as tested. The test crew noted the quick steering, 1.75 turns lock to lock. As no "5th wheel" could be attached for recording data, and as removing the alloy passenger seat tonneau would have also deleted the windshield and cockpit fairing, acceleration times were recorded with R & T's editor huddled beneath the tonneau and leaning over to observe the tachometer. There was no speedometer; this was dictated by Chapman's logic that in a racing car, you're always going as fast as you can. In this case "as fast as you can" meant a top speed of 132 mph, with 0 to 60 coming up in 9 seconds, and the quarter mile in 16. Not bad for a car with 83 hp from the 1098cc single overhead cam inline four, a lightweight aluminum unit that was famously designed as a fire pump engine. Price-wise, the Eleven Le Mans was a deal at only $5,467, at a time when a competing OSCA, which the Lotus was already beating on the track, cost $9,500. Competition success for Team Lotus included winning the 1,100cc class at Le Mans in 1956 and again in 1957, and winning that class at the 1957 Sebring 12 hours. The 40 hp. Lotus Sports from Jay Chamberlains's LA dealership also looked like a bargain at $3,690, topping out at 99 mph and making the 0 to 60 run in 14.2 seconds, but the editors pointed out that it would have been swamped in the under 1500cc racing class because of its 1.2 liter, side-valve, pushrod engine, and its lack of ground clearance and 42-foot turning circle made it impractical for use on the street.
A major factor in the appeal of the Eleven was the visual character of the thing. The entire Eleven line shared a fetchingly aerodynamic body design by Frank Costin, contoured in aluminum to fit over the lightweight tubular chassis by Williams & Pritchard. The form, with its low wheel cutouts and diagonal creases emphasizing (and perhaps stiffening) the ovoid fenders, gave new meaning to the phase "fully enveloping" and was an instant classic. Along with the car's competition success, the distinctive curves and low profile insured that lots of weekend racers wanted one, despite impractical features like narrow seats, optional and sketchy weather protection, downward-opening doors hinged at the sills, and fuel tanks mounted at the front, next to the engine and opposite the driver. A wide-cockpit version was made to comply with dimensional regulations laid down by the FIA, which sanctioned endurance racing.
The Eleven was such a success that in 1958 Chapman's team introduced an improved version with Lotus-designed double wishbone independent front suspension replacing the Allard-style front swing axles of the earlier cars (Chapman had used a low pivot on these). The steel tubular space frame chassis was also strengthened, along with drivetrain improvements. The suspension improvements came from the Lotus 12 single-seater, and while some racers referred to the new, improved Eleven as the Lotus 13, Colin Chapman never did. The factory designated the car as the Eleven Series 2; perhaps Chapman and crew were a bit superstitious. About 120 of the 270 Elevens built were of this Series 2 variety. By the early Eighties, when Westfield Sportscars got around to making a replica of the well-loved Eleven, they'd switched to fiberglass for bonnet, fenders and doors, and made left-hand drive, as on the car below, an option. These were initially available as kits or as factory-built cars. Engines fitted into the factory-built cars were often the BMC 1275, but there were also examples of the short-stroke Ford 105E. As compared with the original Eleven, the Westfield had a bit longer wheelbase (90 in. vs. 85) and was wider (64 in. vs. 59); minimum weight was up from 1,000 lb. to 1,170. But by the time the Westfield Eleven appeared, vintage racing had become popular, driving up the price of the original Lotus Elevens, which were mostly useful on a race track, and not very practical anywhere else. By the mid-Eighties, Road & Track had built a Westfield Eleven project car and taken it on a road trip across America, proving that it could be done, though this might be a more daunting task in these days of lumbering SUVs with texting drivers at the wheel...
One of the results of the Eleven's success was that most production Lotuses (Lotii?) that came after it were given names that started with the letter E. Colin Chapman liked the way "Eleven" sounded after "Lotus", and during the design of the Lotus 14, which overlapped production of the Eleven in 1957, decided to call it the Elite. A white Type 14 Lotus Elite is centered in the row of Lotuses shown below, parked next to a green Elise and a white Esprit. Between it and the red Westfield Eleven is a black Lotus Sprint. Wait, that violates the rule, right? Well, in England and Europe, the Sprint was called the Eclat. It was a fastback version of the wedge-shaped wagon-back Elite Type 75, with 2+2 seating. Maybe Chapman didn't trust that Americans could pronounce "Eclat", and perhaps it served him right that the Sprint flopped in the USA. But the Elite Type 75 introduced in 1974 was a flop too. It had the same reputation for fragility as the original Type 14 Elite, but none of its beauty. And Road & Track thought that retreating from discs to inboard rear drum brakes on the Elite / Eclat / Sprint was not a wise move, especially as the Elite was, at the time, the world's most expensive four-cylinder car. The commercial failure of the expensive, wedge-shaped Lotus front-engined production cars highlighted the popularity of the Westfield Eleven, which appeared in 1982, the year the Elite / Eclat twins faded, as well as the Caterham Seven*, which had been building a following since 1973. And it may not be a coincidence that when new Lotus management planned a more reasonably-priced Lotus for the Nineties, the new Elise was a lightweight 2-seater that abandoned the wedge for a design with no straight lines. But the story of the mid-engined Elise and its Esprit and Europa forbears is one we'll save for another day...
*Footnote: A brief history of the Lotus Eleven's forgotten ancestors, the Mark VIII, Mk. IX and Mk. X, appeared in our previous post, "Forgotten Classics: Lotus, Between Seven and Eleven", on March 10, 2023. We told the story of the Lotus that preceded the Mark VIII, the Lotus Seven, and its modern Caterham cousins, in "Caterham Cars: Multiples of Seven", posted on March 11, 2018. And we examined a famously beautiful design landmark, the fiberglass monocoque Lotus 14 (the original Elite) and compared it with a missed design opportunity from the same period, in "Worst Car Designs Ever, Part 2: Plastic Promise, Plastic Peril", posted here on July 31, 2016.
Photo Credits:
Top: Denée Foti
Top: Denée Foti
2nd: Bob Jecmen
3rd: Ralph Poole for Road & Track
4th & 5th: Lotus Cars
6th & bottom: the author
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