Lotus Europa Community
Lotus Europa Forums => Classifieds Forums => eBay - Craigslist Ads - Other Listings => Topic started by: Lou Drozdowski on Wednesday,November 18, 2020, 07:45:00 PM
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Seller described as "barn find"....California
https://www.ebay.com/itm/1974-Lotus-Europa-Special-Twin-Cam-Special/324376017027?hash=item4b86513883:g:QucAAOSwOA5fsfl0
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Not bad really. I would have liked to see it idle though. Hopefully the 365 is in good shape.
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Not bad really. I would have liked to see it idle though. Hopefully the 365 is in good shape.
The good...looks like it's mostly all there and the wheels cleaned up well.
The bad...plenty of work, brakes, everything rubber, you know the drill...full sorting.
The ugly...paint & that interior
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Is that a one off thermostat housing - or standard for the export model? (There appears to be a plug on the top)
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The car is also listed on the Los Angeles Craigslist. Car is located in Orange County, Irvine and Mission Viejo area.
https://losangeles.craigslist.org/lgb/cto/d/lake-forest-1974-lotus-twin-cam-special/7219610571.html
That tartan fabric center console arm rest pad looks awfully familiar.
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Are the front indicators correct ?
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No. I guess the PO didn’t like warts!
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I noticed the description "CLEAN UNRESTORED and VERY ORIGINAL" (except for all of the mods done over the years...)
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"the last version of the Europa has nothing to do with the earlier Renaut powered versions. This is the Europa model/series to have!"
Um, Nothing Renault, except of course the entire transmission!
The attempted hype, TC snobbery, and put down of the Renault engines annoys me.
I really have no reason to care but it does.
My own is Renault with TS head, and exactly what I wanted.
Nothing against the TC's, but it seems repairs are very expensive, blocks are heavy iron, the heads are not that durable, and a TS will make similar power.
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"the last version of the Europa has nothing to do with the earlier Renaut powered versions. This is the Europa model/series to have!"
I was mildly annoyed by that as well. It suggests the S2 is a lesser car, which is patently untrue. Many S2 owners prefer their car to a TC. I would think that pretty much all S1 owners are convinced they, in fact, have the "model/series to have", and it would be hard to argue.
The statement is also factually wrong in its suggestion that earlier and later Europas are completely dissimilar machines, when in fact they are very nearly the same car.
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"the last version of the Europa has nothing to do with the earlier Renaut powered versions. This is the Europa model/series to have!"
Um, Nothing Renault, except of course the entire transmission!
The attempted hype, TC snobbery, and put down of the Renault engines annoys me.
I really have no reason to care but it does.
My own is Renault with TS head, and exactly what I wanted.
Nothing against the TC's, but it seems repairs are very expensive, blocks are heavy iron, the heads are not that durable, and a TS will make similar power.
Forgive my ignorance but what is a TS
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Forgive my ignorance but what is a TS
Probably refers to the head being from a Renault 16TS.
The 'TS' indicates the later cross flow head.
The original car, just named "Renault 16", used a wedge head.
Europa S1 & S2's were supplied with a couple of variants of warmed over Renault 16 engines utilising the wedge heads.
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Yes, TS is the almost a Hemi, cross-flow head.
From my reading these heads were originally a Gordini design but it would not be accurate to refer to my car as having a Gordini engine.
A surprisingly common S1/S2 modification since it was not available from the factory.
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Don't forget the Renault crossflow came in a range of stock tunes (80hp to 125hp: varied port and valve sizes, compression ratios and carb type and number) and was available as a crate engine in yet more tunes (100hp to 160hp). So, having a "crossflow" head doesn't mean much without more specifics.
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Sold for less than 14 grand....
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Amedee Gordini was essentially gone by the time the R16TS came out and it's not like a 'hemi' combustion chamber was a new idea. Amedee died in 1979.
At that point in time, it's well documented that Renault had taken over the Gordini work and folded it into their newly minted 'Renault Sport' division.
That's not to say that Amedee wasn't a clever and important guy. He was, and receives less recognition than perhaps is fair, but most of his fame was earned much earlier in the 50's with Simca.
But the Gordini history is better known in French circles and Renault were smart enough to keep the 'Gordini' badge on their sporting cars as a result. I recall Renault even used the 'Gordini' branding on cam covers of relatively recent F1 engines.
Back when the Renault 12 Gordini was produced, six were delivered here to Australia for the factory supported rallying effort. They arrived as 125HP (10.25 compression) vehicles and with the 160HP kit in the boot/trunk.
I'm rambling . . but, if anything, Alpine arguably did more development work on the humble cross flow engine than Renault Sport, although, with that said, the 807 G4 16 valve engine was pretty fine.
For context, it's important to remember that both Gordini and Alpine were essentially Renault 'tuners'.
Renault eventually bought Alpine too, just like Ford purchased Cosworth.
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Renault bought Gordini as well. Gordini did amazing things before the time of "scientific" tuning when tuning was more of an art -- thus the moniker "Sorcerer". By the mid-60s and on, his engines were not producing what others were and he was shunted to the side by Renault. He had some odd ideas, not the least of which was having the spark plug in it's own chamber with two narrow passages to the combustion chamber -- a poor man's twin plug? Of course, twin plugging was an attempt to solve issues of poor combustion chamber design.
Don't get me wrong, the early tuners did amazing work and there was very little actually known about combustion processes at the time. Lots of big companies made a real hash of their tuning as well. The step to four valves was problematic for many as it wasn't the number of valves that was the real step forward but the introduction of swirling of the intake mix. Ducati, the big Japanese 3 and others all made a hash of it at first.
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Larry Widmer has some interesting designs and theories on the combustion process.