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Hi Again Folks & Welcome to FLAT OUT!
And Now For Something Completely Different….
The Lotus Europa
The Europa was a mid-engine GT built by Lotus from 1966 to 1975. It is one of the first mid-engine production cars to hit the streets and the first to be mass-produced and affordable. The mid-engine configuration had become the standard for Grand Prix cars by the mid-1960s owing to the neutral handling characteristics given by having the engine in the middle, completely within the wheelbase, as opposed to up front, partially as unsprung weight. Colin Chapman was a design engineer, inventor, and founder of both the Lotus street car brand and Team Lotus Racing, which won seven Formula One Constructor’s Championships, six Formula One Driver’s Championships and the Indianapolis 500 between 1962 and 1978. His philosophy to building both racing cars and production cars can be summed up in his oft-repeated phrase: “Simplify, then add lightness”.
I decided to write this particular piece and publish it now because as we were driving back from Orlando one day last week I saw a car on a trailer ahead of me. As I exclaimed “Is that…” then as I drew closer, “It IS!” my wife looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. She shouldn’t have, she knows full well my passion for cars, especially unusual ones. Then I had to explain why. It was a Lotus Europa, the first I had seen in over 30 years and the first on American soil. When I was a lad living with my parents in Germany I collected British Corgi miniature car models, similar in size to Matchbox or Hot Wheels cars in the US. One was a Lotus Europa. I saw one in person in the parking lot of a racing event at the famedĀ NĆ¼rburgring trackĀ some 12 years later and I have been fascinated with them ever since…so I thought I would share it with you fine folks.
Series One (Lotus Type 46) 1966-1968
The Europa used a folded and welded minimalist steel backbone chassis and a fiberglass body, first used by Chapman in the 1962 Lotus Elan. Early versions had the fiberglass body bonded to the chassis for maximum stiffness, later models switched to a bolted-on body to ease chassis and body repairs. The chassis formed a “U-shape” at the back to accommodate the engine, transaxle and rear suspension. The car was based on a prototype built to compete for Henry Ford II’s contract to build a LeMans racecar in the early 1960s.
Chapman was looking to diversify from the Ford drivetrain components of earlier Lotus cars, but needed a reliable, relatively inexpensive engine and transaxle to keep costs low. He settled on the new 1470 cc (1.5 liter) Renault engine and combined transaxle/final drive from their Renault 16. Chapman flipped the engine and transaxle 180 degrees to drive the rear wheels instead of the front as in the Renault, but had to reposition the differential’s crown wheel and pinion gear to reverse the direction of rotation of the output shafts, otherwise the Europa would have had four reverse gears and one forward. The Renault 16 engine had an aluminum block with cast-iron cylinder liners, which saved weight, and a camshaft high up in the block for better high RPM performance. Lotus revised the engine for a higher compression ratio (10.25:1 vs 8.6:1) and added larger intake valves, revised the valve timing, added additional valve springs and a two-barrel carb. This increased the horsepower from 63 in the Renault to 82. That may not sound like much, but the Europa initially weighed only 1345 lbs., little more than half of a 1966 Mustang, and had little parasitic loss of power from the drivetrain. Later models would gain in horsepower.
The suspension was another Chapman innovation, four-wheel independent with lightweight pressed steel upper and lower wishbones and coil-over spring dampers in front. The rear suspension was a variation of the “Chapman strut” developed for his Grand Prix racers. The vertical strut pivots on the wheel hub at the lower end, but doesn’t control camber as on earlier Lotus designs. A fixed-length articulated driveshaft top link and tubular lower link and a large box-section radius arm completed the rear suspension assembly. This setup earned praise from the automotive writers of the time, saying that the Europa was the nearest thing to a Formula One car for the road. The steering was a rack and pinion unit sourced from the Triumph Herald. Autocar magazine reached a top speed of 121 MPH in their tests of a Series 1.
The Series 1 was extremely light and minimalist, with fixed side windows, fixed seats (the pedals were adjustable with tools to fit different driver heights), no door handles or interior door panels and an aluminum dashboard. Only 296 of these initial Series 1 cars were built. The later Series 1A and 1B models had removable side windows, interior door panels that could accommodate the windows when they were taken off and a wood dashboard. About 350 Series 1A and 1B cars were built.
While Series 1 production was ongoing, Lotus built the Type 47 racecar variant of the Europa. Fitted with a 165 HP, 1594 cc Lotus/Ford/Cosworth engine and a Hewland FT 200 5-speed gearbox it took the racing world by storm, including first and second place finishes in its initial outing at the Brands Hatch raceway in England on Boxing Day. It’s estimated that between 55 and 68 Type 47 Europas were built between 1966 and 1970.
Series Two (Lotus Type 54) 1968-1971
The Series 2 used the same Renault engine and transaxle as the Series 1. The body was now bolted to the chassis to better facilitate chassis and body repairs. This reduced torsional and flexural stiffness somewhat, but the difference went largely unnoticed by all but the most aggressive drivers.
Series 2’s were more refined cars from a driver’s standpoint, having opening electric windows, door handles, a fully carpeted interior and a polished wooden fascia panel on the dashboard. Externally they differed little from the Series 1 save for front indicator nacelles between the headlights beginning in early 1969. Some 1968 cars had black and silver Lotus badges instead of the usual yellow and green to commemorate the death of Lotus’ championship-winning driver Jim Clark earlier in the year.
A small number of Series 2 Europas were “Federalized” to meet US DOT regulations for export to the US. These were known internally to Lotus as Type 65 and featured body, chassis and suspension changes to meet the US requirements as well as a newer 1565 cc engine with modified emissions controls as opposed to the 1470 cc engine of the European models. The suspension changes made the car taller in the front end and the front fenders were further modified to raise the headlamps. Road & Track magazine tested one of these and recorded a top speed of 116 MPH as opposed to the 120 MPH top speed of European Series 2s.
3,615 Series 2 Europas were produced.
Twin Cam (Type 74) & Special 1971-1975
In 1971 Lotus unveiled the Type 74 Twin-Cam. The car featured a new Lotus-Ford Twin-Cam engine with 105 HP (113 HP in the Big-Valve “Federalized” US version with emissions controls and a Stromberg carbs). Initially the same Renault transaxle used in the Series 1 and 2 was used, when the supply ran out the car was built with a new, stronger 4-speed Renault gearbox.
In September of 1972 the Europa got the same Big-Valve engine as the “Federalized” US version, but without the emissions controls and putting out 13 more HP. The Big Valve engine also got a new 5-speed gearbox, again from Renault, and Dell’Orto carbs. The first 100 of these were badged and painted black with gold pinstriping to honor Team Lotus’ 1972 Formula One World Championship win with John Player Special cigarettes as sponsor. These cars were known as John Player Special Commemoratives and each had a numbered JPS badge on the dashboard.
1580 cars were produced with the lower HP Twin-Cam engine before the Big Valve versions became available. Other Series 2s were painted black without the gold pinstriping and were known as Europa Specials. 3,130 of these were produced as well as 1,580 other Europas.
Europa S 2006-2010
In 2006 Lotus released the Europa S, based on the Elise model. It featured a 197 HP turbocharged 4-cylinder engine and could reach a maximum speed of 147 MPH. No Europa S models were exported to the US.
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