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+--- Thread: Prototype Car Chronology (/showthread.php?tid=937)
Prototype Car Chronology - PJ Grady (Europe) - 23 Sep 2007
All,
If anyone is interested in the development of the Lotus prototype cars - I've updated the website with the latest details that Chris and I have gleaned from lots of old Lotus paperwork...
http://www.pjgrady.co.uk//GenericConten ... _Cars.html
Interesting reading...
Darren
- Guinney1971 - 23 Sep 2007
Fascinating reading there Darren, you guys certainly have been busy researching all this stuff!
Such a shame that so many of these important cars were destroyed, but I guess at the time, folks involved wernt to know how revered the cars would be nearly 30 years later........ :roll:
- neal - 24 Sep 2007
It's a Education for me, to read and see photos about the pilot cars, before and after I started with DMCL.
Very well done.
- dmcscott2002 - 24 Sep 2007
Very interesting reading indeed! What is it with people wanting to bury cars! Surly this has got to be an odd side effect of being exposed to a DMC as I've only ever heard of DeLoreans being buried for no aparent reason :p
I mean even as building hardcore, since when have cars been an exceptable form of hardcore!?!
Top research!
Cheers
- Jonny Jones - 24 Sep 2007
dmcscott2002 Wrote:I mean even as building hardcore, since when have cars been an exceptable form of hardcore!?!
Im lost, what are you on about Scott mate haha?
I agree with the others Darren, awesome work, as always!!
- PJ Grady (Europe) - 24 Sep 2007
As I understand it, most of the parts from the first prototypes were used for later prototypes - and we have evidence of this on Pilot 20.
How the prototypes were destroyed is a constant source of stories.
I've heard (from reliable sources):
(a) Some were crushed by a tank that Lotus were doing some work with
(b) They were buried and used as hardcore
© They were given to Lotus employees
(d) They were taken to a local scrap yard and parted out
A little bit of each may be true.
I understand that the buried/used as hardcore was mainly around the chassis frame that Lotus weren't too keen to leave lying around in a scrap yard for potential competitors to copy.
It's a real shame I can't find anything anywhere about the Irish built prototypes....
Darren
- dmcscott2002 - 24 Sep 2007
Right at the bottom it talks about prototypes being buried, im not going mad am I, it does say that!? :?
There:
'Many of the other cars were either crushed or scrapped. Some of the cars were crushed at the Lotus plant in Hethel, and were buried on site – used as hardcore for new buildings. Others were driven to a scrap yard nearby, and were parted out or destroyed. PJ Grady Europe has spoken with the owner of the scrap yard who recalled hacking away at the gullwing doors in order to get the stainless steel to sell to a local metal merchant! '
'PJ Grady Europe are also aware of another prototype car ‘X’, which was acquired by a Lotus engineer, who for reasons unknown, decided to bury the car in his back garden! When the person died, his family found all the documentation for the car and dug it up. By then it was pretty rotten, and was towed away and disposed of. '
