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Last Lotus Eclat built?


Jesse

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Hello all 

I stumbled upon this forum and noticed that only 223 Eclat Rivièra’s were built.  I then realized mine, according to the VIN, is number 223.  Could it be that this is the last one built? 
 

Kind Regards 

Jesse

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  • 3 weeks later...

Upgrade today to remove Google ads and support TLF.

There were different sequences for different markets so not necessarily. Given where you are located your 12 digit will probably not be a D which means there were another 9 built in the sequence after yours.

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Hi Jesse, there weren’t 223 Rivieras. According to different sources at Lotus there were only 69 or 80. The 223 are a different kind of figure. So, do you have yourself a Riviera? Please show us some pictures. Is it a red one? And what is your exact VIN ?

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  • 2 weeks later...
On ‎11‎/‎02‎/‎2020 at 09:09, Jeanvm said:

😍Riviera are already rare. I wonder how many JPS Riviera there are?

0 - Lotus never did a JPS Elite or Eclat

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Well there is one. A JPS elite was used as a course car at the Brands Hatch GP in the 1970's. Had the reg no JPS 2. Whether or not it was a genuine road car/for sale etc, or just a show car for JPS and Lotus only being used off road I dont know, probably Andy Graham at Lotus may know the answer. Also there is a picture of the same vehicle at a 1981 Lotus photoshoot at Brands Hatch with several JPS cars.  

Edited by Angus553
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I would love to see a copy of that 1981 photo if anyone has one to post. I had a conversation with the widow of the first owner of my S2 Elite during my research and was told that when they first fell in love with the car while being wined and dined at Lotus (the purchaser was a long-standing Lotus customer) Colin Chapman, who was their host, told them that it was ‘one of the new JPS promotional cars’.  I always thought this was unlikely to be anything other than salesmanship, it’s black over silver not gold, but you never know.  When I asked Andy at the archives if he knew any more he could only shrug. Either way it would be great to ascertain this apocryphal provenance!

Regular restorer. Rather less reliable forum poster!

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'Black and Gold' the JPS story has the picture of it at the 74 British GP at Brands Hatch. 

'Lotus the Legend' has the 1981 picture, again at Brands Hatch.(not a great shot of the Elite but its in the background).

1974 GP photo also available on page 22 of the Elite/Eclat/Excel picture thread on this forum.

 

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To your original question, Jesse, yours is not the last Eclat built, but it's close.

There are two VIN number ranges for the S2.2:

Domestic: 0957 - 1143 = 187 built

RoW (Rest of World): 0206 - 0232 = 27 built

Your VIN number is 0223, which makes it the ninth from last RoW S2.2 to be built. The 10th character of the VIN is C which means it was built in 1982, and the 12th character is G which means it is an RoW (Hot) RHD model!

Production data is from Graham Robson's "The Third Generation Lotuses," and the VIN codes can be found in the parts manual.

Cheers, Richard

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On 22/02/2020 at 23:07, black eclat said:

Nice off those 2 lads to stop and help fix the broken down Audi.

Looks like they're getting something out of the engine bay to fix something in the audi's boot - my guess is the fuel cut off valve. A well known weak point on those audi 80 b2s

😉

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Hi Jesse,

yours is one of the first RestofWorld Riviera cars. So there are some behind you. But with your location and equipment (auto+ac+pas) it is supposedly 1of a kind . If you really want to know everything of your car, you can order a Certificate of Provenance at Lotus. The results of the built archiv should be very interesting, also for us if you want like to share them.

Don

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