Lot 016: 1959/1966 LOTUS ELITE

The following description has been pieced together from information supplied by the vendor, Club Elite (UK) and a former keeper. It would appear that the chassis number '1037' has been applied to two Lotus Elite bodyshells both of which were supplied new to amateur racer Richard 'Dickie' Stoop. The first '1037' was entered for Douglas Graham and Mike McKee to drive at the 1959 Le Mans 24-hours in the hope that it would be the earliest 'all British' car home. To this end, it carried a MG gearbox and SU carburettors (whereas competition Elites normally utilised a ZF transmission and twin Webers). However, the first '1037' was involved in a pre-race accident and never made the starting line. Having acquired a replacement bodyshell and various other components from Lotus, Stoop intended to resurrect the Elite but never got round to it. Instead, the project was taken over by his friend and fellow Porsche 904 GTS driver Patrick Godfrey who created the second '1037'. Road registered as 'OKX 84D', this later car then passed through the hands of Thomas Weller (Reading), Jesse Crossman (Camberley) and William Prince (Orpington) before entering the current family ownership in July 1970. Dry stored since the early 1980s, it is now in need of extensive restoration. Seemingly complete, the second '1037' sports various competition-biased features including four alloy brake callipers, a long-range fuel tank and 'Le Mans' big-bore fuel filler. Fitted with a mixture of Elite S1 (rear suspension, interior) and Elite S2 (front suspension, handbrake assembly) parts as well as a MG gearbox and replacement Coventry-Climax FWE engine, this intriguing Lotus is accompanied by a green registration logbook, manual and sundry papers.