#LotusElan

A strange coincidence today — as exotic-obsessed auto journos took to Twitter to drool over Caterham’s latest iteration of the classic Lotus Seven roadster (and rightly so, as motoring doesn’t get any purer), Lotus itself may be planning to resurrect a famous nameplate from the past.

This model’s a little more modern than the Seven, but only just. According to sources who spoke to Autocar, the British automaker, now flush with cash from its Chinese parent, has its eye on a new Elan.

The Rare Rides series has featured two Capri-adjacent vehicles in past: This car’s immediate predecessor, the ASC McLaren Capri, and its contemporary competitor, the Lotus Elan. Let’s find out how much better the final Capri was than either of those two (or not).

The Rare Rides series has featured a couple Lotus-related items before. The first was this Isuzu I-Mark RS, which was an Isuzu with some Lotus badges on it. Then came the Elite, which was a real Lotus. Today we take a look at the Elan, which mixes it up with Lotus badges and an Isuzu engine.

Patrick Macnee’s son Rupert announced his actor father passed away in California at the age of 93. He was best known for portraying secret agent John Steed in the 1960s British television show, The Avengers.

I was a young teenage boy when the series began syndication in the United States so you’ll excuse me if I paid a bit more attention to his co-star Diana Rigg and Emma Peel’s Lotus Elans than to Macnee and John Steed’s prewar Bentleys. However, Steed’s talent and his deadpan delivery were major factors in the show’s success. It ran for 6 years on the BBC, was syndicated for decades in the U.S. and you can still probably find it in reruns somewhere in the cable universe.

With the classic Bentleys and the Elan, The Avengers has been a favorite of car enthusiasts since the show first ran, but I had no idea just how car-centric the series was.

Another red ragtop? What is this guy thinking? I promise. I’m not a hairdresser, or whatever BS-esque image you might have of me.

I just dig small, unusual, cheap cars that are fun to drive on the street.

Full gallery here

You may find the idea that relatively obscure British sports car, with fewer than 16,000 made, could be the most inspirational or influential sports car ever a bit far-fetched, but I think a compelling argument can be made in the favor of the Lotus Elan. Yes, there were two seaters going back to the MG TC and even before that there were cars like the the Jaguar SS100. In many people’s minds the MGB defined 1960s era two seat roadsters, but was the B that much different from the Austin Healeys, the MGA, and the Jaguar XKs? An argument could be made that the Elan was the first modern sports car (putting aside the E Type Jaguar for the sake of argument) and it was introduced almost simultaneously with the MGB. Its contemporaries from MG and Triumph were primitive cars compared to the Elan.

We don’t typically do a lot of television coverage around here. You’ll have to go to some other car enthusiast site to find out the latest thing that Jeremy Clarkson has said to ensure that folks spell his name correctly. Still, I’m willing to bet that most of our readers do watch television and if they do they are likely to gravitate to programs that have some automotive content. There’s a new car build show, that you might want to check out. Now, to begin with, I’m not naive about the nature of “unscripted” “reality” shows on tv. I’ve personally witnessed producers of Hardcore Pawn feed lines to folks in Les Gold’s parking lot. Still, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in this game it’s that people are more interested in people than they are about cars. Would Shelby cars be as interesting without the personality of that overall wearing chicken farmer from Texas? People watch reality shows because the people are real people, not professional actors, even if the premise and settings are a bit staged.