My Uncles Lotus. Now mine

[BDA]

Very cool pictures, JR!

[EuropaTC]

Yes that’s my uncle!

Oh heck, I'm sorry to hear he's no longer around. IIRC I first met him at Chris Neil's buying bits for my Elan where he had this scruffy yellow Europa and we were thinking about getting one as well.  Then around the time we bought ours we went on a Club Lotus weekend, decided to stay an extra day and he & Linda were doing the same. It was a late night at the Bellsfield bar that Sunday !

That car of yours will be well known in "old Lotus" circles, it got around to plenty of meets. One of the few guys I knew who actually used their cars without worrying about wearing them out....

Brian

[Pete]

So the unit number? Does that mean it’s number 54 off the production line?

[SilverBeast]

No. It's a Type 54. The last 4 digits are the serial number. I think the serial can be duplicated as they may have been numbered for the different markets (UK, US, rest of world) there is a letter on the end to designate this on the Twin Cams. Not sure about S1/S2's, but I'm sure you wont have to wait long for someone who is.

Oh and a belated 

[jbcollier]

it's roughly the 2392nd off the line from the start of S1 production.  Shortly after this they changed the system as they needed more digits to meet legal requirements.

[EuropaTC]

Here ya go...   (attachment)

You're roughly 1000 into S2 production, these changes taken from Robinshaw's book on the Europa.

Brian

[lotusfanatic]

Hello Pete,

 

sorry for your loss,
Mark

[Bainford]

Interesting. I photographed this car at Oulton Park in 2000 (pre-digital photography for me, else I would post the photos). I was quite taken with the car.

So sorry to hear about your uncle. Glad you found your way to the forum, though. Welcome.

[Pete]

Thanks all.
I can’t wait to get the car back up to road worthy driving. What wing mirrors do you all have? Mine is it’s missing one of its glass. But I’ve been looking at some bullet chrome ones on eBay.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FORD-VW-MINI-COOPER-NEW-BULLET-RACING-MIRROR-DOOR-WING-ONE-PAIR-Bive-/384042175567?_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286
Don’t know if they will fit or are any good?

[JR73]

There was some discussion about mirrors in this thread not too long ago;

http://www.lotuseuropa.org/LotusForum/index.php?topic=4344.msg47082#msg47082

[EuropaTC]

Hi Pete,

The ebay ones you linked to look exactly like the ones I was using on my car. The drivers side one works fine, the passenger side not so much. I did get a good field of view by modifying the mirror mount to add a bit more angle and the pedestal mounts helped as well.  I only ever use the passenger door one for reversing into the workshop so it was good enough.

The cheap California copies that I bought and are mentioned in the thread JR73 linked to give a better field of view. There's a few sellers on Ebay with them, price varies as I said on that topic thread but the pictures displayed look very similar.

Brian

[JR73]

In case you are wondering what the Vitaloni’s look like... if you look at the pics I posted earlier in this thread with Roger in at Anglesey - every Europa has them fitted! Can post a better pic of them if you want?

Jon

[Pete]

Yes please.
Also. What type of oil shall I be putting in the engine? It’s the Renault r16ts 807 cross flow

[JR73]

Front, rear and side (ish) pics.
Properly positioned you can actually see rearwards out of both quite usefully.

[jbcollier]

Off the shelf, modern oils have been formulated to work with catalytic converters.  Some useful additives for "flat tappet" engines have been removed.  There are a number of "classic" oils available which have these missing ingredients.  Penrite, Millers, Mobil 1, Brad Penn, and even Castrol now offer classic oils.  See what is available locally and go from there.  I would run a 20w50 weight.