“LOTUS 75th ANNIVERSARY” held at Daikanyama T-SITE
“Morning Cruise,” an event for car lovers, is held on the second Sunday of every month at “Daikanyama T-SITE” in Shibuya Ward. The theme for this December 24, 2023 was “LOTUS 75th ANNIVERSARY” to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Lotus, and more than an hour before the venue gates opened, a long line of old and new Lotus cars formed on the still dimly lit Old Yamanote Street waiting for the event to open.
The Elite was born as a GT sport with an innovative structure
At a venue with a high proportion of modern and contemporary Lotus cars, mainly models from the “aluminum bonded monocoque” generation after the first-generation “Elise,” this one car attracted a great deal of attention. It was the first generation Lotus “Elite,” which is probably the oldest of the participating cars. As you know, the first-generation Elite was unveiled at the 1957 London Show at the same time as the Seven. While the Seven had an infinitely simple and spartan design, the Elite was born as a GT sports car with an innovative structure, “a full monocoque FRP body,” which was unparalleled for a mass-produced sports car at that time.
The elite he has always admired since he was young
“This Elite is a 1962 Series 2. I’ve had my eye on an Elite since I was in my 20s, and finally got my hands on one six years ago. This car was imported to Japan about 30 years ago and has been featured in Super CG magazine,”
said owner Mr. Shinji Sasaki. He is an employee of an automobile manufacturer and once had the opportunity to purchase an Elite at company expense as a research vehicle for that manufacturer. At that time, he tried to offer to buy an Elite in the hope that he might be able to get a discount when his research was finished.
“When I listened carefully, I heard that the research vehicle I had purchased would be used for crash tests at the end, so I decided that I couldn’t waste money on such a wasteful idea and, on the contrary, prevented him from purchasing it. It took us a long time to get another Elite.”
A masterpiece of a sports car that also served as a model for the Honda S series
“When I was stationed in the UK, I drove a Honda S800 coupe, but on the contrary, I have been driving this Elite since I came back to Japan. What I like about it is its design. It is said that Honda used the Elite as a great reference when developing the “S” series in the past, and I can feel the influence of the dashboard design in particular.”
“The suspension is a particularly delicate structure, so sometimes it ‘dislocates’ on the road and gets stuck, but that’s just as it should be for a Lotus of this era.”
