February 12th this year, marked the 25th anniversary of my having purchased my Lotus Europa Special. It is a milestone which is hard to accept, because it really doesn't seem all that long ago. Not many people get the chance to buy a Lotus brand new, so I thought I might share the events of this memorable occasion, and some of the highlights of 25 years of Europa ownership.
Even before I graduated from slot cars to the Real Thing, I have had a love for racing and sports cars. My first car was a 1969 Camaro, with a 307 V8, 2 speed automatic, and drum brakes all around. Although it looked similar to Mark Donohue's Trans-Am winning Z/28, that's where the family resemblance ended, because it was not very satisfying in terms of performance. And despite the Ziebart rustproofing, it was already suffering from the road salt ravages of winter driving. Before long, I decided that I wanted to get a real, honest to goodness sports car.
Unlike today, the choices among sports cars were vast: MGB, MGB-GT, Midget, Triumph Spitfire, GT-6 and TR6, Fiat 124, Porsche 914, Alfa Romeo Spyder ... I checked them all out at the Auto Show and at the dealer showrooms. I even considered a Porsche 911 (very briefly) and a Chevy Corvette (very, very briefly). But I wanted something different, something distinctive, something on the cutting edge, and something that wouldn't rust.
Then, while flipping through the pages of the Road & Track Road Testing Annual, I came across an article for the Lotus Europa S2. The road test, originally printed in May of 1970, was all aglow with the Europa's exceptional handling, fabulous brakes, and good straight line performance. The car featured a mid-engine layout, just like modern racing cars, and (surprise!) a fiberglass body. It may sound cliché today, but it was truly a race car for the street. To me, the idea of owning a sports car built by a famous race car manufacturer was intoxicating. Not everybody liked the styling, but for me it was love at first sight, and I vowed to get one someday.
In the January '72 issue of Road & Track, I learned that the S2 Europa had been replaced by the Twincam. Spec-wise, this was a better car with the more powerful Ford-based twincam engine replacing the Renault pushrod unit, and a little more interior room, but the body style was a bitter disappointment. The factory had conceded to the road testers' complaints of poor rear side vision because of the "sails" which gave the car its fastback profile. The result was something that looked more like a small scale El Camino.
But the Europa fire still burned. At the Chicago Auto Show, I met Ed Regan, who managed of "The Sportscar Store", the Chicago area Lotus dealership in Downers Grove, Illinois. I would go and visit The Sportscar Store and drool over the cars in the showroom and back in the shop. Ed had a Lotus 23 sports racer back there, as well as a purple B Sedan Cortina (Lotus?) with a white flash which belonged to Ed Tilottson.
In early February of 1974, 1 paid another visit to The Sportscar Store with the intention of simply getting some prices for a used S2 Europa. There I met the salesman, Tom Dunleavy (Only recently did I discover that Tom is member Rick Dunleavy's brother). Tom tried to sell me on the advantages of the new Europa Special, of which he had two in the showroom. The first was a black 5-speed, and the other was a yellow 4-speed. At $7,652, the yellow 4-speed car was a thousand dollars less than the black 5-speed. But, in addition to that, the car was being discounted another $1,000 off the sticker price, something totally unheard of with any sports car, much less a Lotus. The discount brought the price down to $6,652, which was still about $1,600 more than I had anticipated spending. "But", Tom reasoned, "if you're going to take out a loan anyway, why not just borrow a little more, and get a brand new car?" Hmmm.
It didn't take long to think about it (less than 24 hours), and on February 4th, 1974, I put a $150 deposit down on the yellow 4-speed Europa Special, serial number 74-3646R. It was a 1973 model, featuring Brand Lotus alloy wheels, low profile tires (175/70 fronts, 185/70 rears), tinted glass all around, and a six month warranty. No radio. Final price out the door came to $7,010 and ten cents, which was a lot of bucks at that time. I had until the 12th to arrange my finances. Next stop, the friendly bank.
Since this was my very first auto loan and had no credit history, the bank required that I have a co-signer for the $3,600 I needed to borrow. My father agreed to co-sign for me, so we went down to Columbia National Bank of Chicago where we each had our accounts. The interest rate was 10.23%, and with credit life insurance and disability insurance the total amount came out to $4,186.56, to be paid back over 2 years at $174.44 per month. The loan officer then proceeded to lay a guilt trip on me, reminding me how this was an awful lot of money, and that if I should default, my father would be responsible for paying back the loan. Good Grief!
On February 12th, my friend Bob Donald drove me down to The Sportscar Store to take delivery of my new Lotus. My anticipation was incredible. We went through all the paper work, signing this and that, and of course turning over $7,000+ dollars. Finally, the moment of truth. Tom handed me the keys, and we went out to the Europa, which was sitting in front of the dealership, facing the building downhill, and perpendicular to Ogden Avenue. I started the car and as it warmed up, Tom explained where all the various switches and controls were.
Now, prior to this moment, the only real experience I had with a manual gear shift was in a friend's Rambler with three-on-the-tree, and a mushy clutch that engaged only within the top inch of pedal travel. And I was about to back my brand new Lotus, which had an on-off switch for a clutch, uphill, onto busy Ogden Avenue, without rolling into the building in front of me or hitting someone on the road. I selected reverse gear, let out the clutch, and stalled. Restart the engine, let out the clutch, and stalled. This went on for several minutes, and with deep frustration and humiliation, I considered going back inside and giving the car back. I tried once more, and this time got enough RPMs to not stall the engine (a little too many actually), and managed to back up onto Ogden safely.
Heading for home, each stoplight allowed me to learn the clutch a little better, and I began to get adjusted to sitting lower than the door handles of the cars around me. When I reached the cloverleaf entrance ramp for I-294, I finally got to experience what the Road & Track author meant when he said "...when you turn the steering wheel of a Europa, then its real delights are enjoyed." I was in heaven! When I got home, I put the car in the garage, and stood in wonder at what I had just done. After over three years of working up to it, I was finally the owner of a Lotus Europa!
Since I had to sell my Camaro to consummate the purchase, the Europa became my everyday car. I was well aware of the reputation that Lotuses had for reliability, and without a radio to create some distraction, all I had to listen to were all the funny noises the car would make. It was driving me nuts, so two weeks later, I brought the car back and spent two hundred of the last $250 I had in the world to have an AM/FM radio installed. In addition to fixing the broken interior light, I asked the Service Manager, a British chap by the name of Moss, to please have the oil leak fixed. He only laughed, saying "It's British.....all British cars leak oil".
About three months later while on my way to work, the battery went flat. The ammeter had been showing a discharge, but having never driven a car with an ammeter before, I didn't recognize what it was telling me. A quick recharge at a gas station (they still did those sorts of things back then) and I was on my way back to The Sport Car Store. The mechanic, Chip Connell, confirmed a bad alternator, but since they did not have one in stock, he said it would take about a week to get a new one from Lotus East. Great! They did not have a loaner car, and both of my parents were at work. How was I supposed to get home? How was I supposed to get to work for a week without a car? All of a sudden, as if by magic, another alternator materialized and was installed, and I was on my way. I've always wondered about that.
Finally, I thought, I had the right tool for the autocross wars. I soon found out however, that although the car was much more potent than my old Camaro, so was the competition. At that time SCCA and Tri-State ran all the Lotuses in one stock class. And the guy doing most of the winning was Bob Wells in a Series 2 Europa. A lucky first win came at College of DuPage, when Bob nudged a cone on what would have been his best run.
One day the bank called, wanting to know where the title to the Europa was. Until the loan was paid off, the bank was supposed to keep the title. I told them that I didn't have it, and suggested that they call Ed Regan at the dealership. Now, I don't know what kind of story Regan gave the bank, but six months after the sale, there was still no title, and no license plates! Relating this story to Rod Ciombor who was the SCCA Chief Solo Steward (and a layer), he said what the dealer had done was quite illegal. He suggested that I call the dealer and give them two weeks to produce a title and plates before I called the State's Attorney's office. Sure enough, within two weeks I had the title and the license plates. The story I got from Ed Regan, was that the car was originally on a floorplan at a dealership in Ohio, which required that it be titled. But they could not title it because the Certificate of Origin did not follow the car from the importer, Lotus East. Then the Ohio dealer went out of business and the car was shipped to Chicago. Once the Certificate of Origin arrived, the car had to be titled in Ohio, and then it had to be transferred to the Chicago dealer, and then finally transferred to me. Got that? This was another episode that I always wondered about.
By early the next year, I had logged over 12,000 miles on the Europa, and the rear tires were badly worn. And no wonder, as an alignment check showed almost 3/8-inch of toe-in at the rear, and about 1/8-inch toe-out at the front. Then the car developed a strange rumbling sound from the rear. It turned out to be a bad rear wheel bearing, something of an Achilles' heel for Europas. Not having the proper equipment or knowledge to tackle the job, I was forced to take the car back to the dealership to be repaired. The very next day, a late season winter storm dumped 12 inches of snow on the Chicago area, leaving hundreds of cars stuck and stranded. It was April 1, 1975. Given the Europa's low ground clearance and near bald rear tires, I think it was Devine Intervention that made that bearing go bad, and saved the car from that storm.
In 1978, Alan Andrea and I attended E. Paul Dickensen's AIDE school, in Huntington, West Virginia. AIDE stood for Advanced Institute of Driver Education, and Dickensen was thoroughly qualified to show us the fast way around, being a multiple A Stock Solo II National Champion. Alan had a S1 Esprit, and we each drove our Lotuses in the school, giving us valuable practice time in our own cars. It was four days of intense training, and we learned a lot over those four days. On the way home, we drove through a terrible ice storm just north of Indianapolis. The lightweight Lotuses could do no better than 25-30 miles per hour on the ice, while semis were blasting past us at twice that speed. It was quite frightening, and we were so glad to finally get home. It was Good Friday.
The AIDE school experience seemed to help my performance in autocross, as I started collecting a few trophies. A third place finish at the Central-Division runoffs at Old Chicago behind national champion John Fergus and previous national champion Frank Filicicchia encouraged me to go to the National Championship Runoffs. I borrowed Dave Miller's trailer and Bernie Gaynor's Van, and towed the Europa to Hutchinson, Kansas, where I was thoroughly humbled. I finished so far down I didn't bother keeping track of my final standing. By this time, Alan had bought a 5 speed Europa Special, and all through the following year, we battled for the Chicago Region (SCCA) and Tri-State Championships. At Utica Kartway, in our closest finish, he beat me by only .003 of a second. In the end, Alan won the 1979 Tri-State Championship, while I won the Chicago Region Championship.
By 1981 I had fallen in love again, but this time it had nothing to do with cars. On September 4, 1982, I married Miss Luann Ostdick, a girl who actually seemed to enjoy cars, racing, and the like. Instead of a limo, we drove off from the church in the Europa, complete with streamers and balloons. I was vacuuming bird seed out of the car for months afterwards!
I encouraged Luann to try her hand at autocrossing the Europa, and she did fairly well, taking a first place trophy at Lake Geneva Speedway. But at Triton College, she bashed the windshield while negotiating a carousel, and fractured a bone in her hand. At the last event of the year at Soldier Field, a puddle of anti-freeze appeared under the car, and it was apparent that it was water pump time (another Achilles' heel). The water pump evolved into a more extensive project, as a check of the bearings revealed some copper showing through. So I decided to go the whole route, and had the valves done, balanced the crank, rods, pistons, and flywheel.
Our first son, Carl James, was born in 1986, and our little house in Des Plaines became a bit too little. We bought a home west of Elgin, and moved in with the help of a family, friends, and a rental truck. After unloading the truck, I drove it back to the rental agency, walked the few blocks to the old house, and collected the Europa to drive back to the new house. At least that was the plan. While on I-90, the Europa began to miss and sputter, and finally expired at Route 59. It was dark, I had no flashlight. I had my tools, but even if I had found the problem, I had no parts. So for the first time, I had to abandon the Europa, and walked four miles to the next exit. From a gas station I called Luann who was terribly worried, and then a flatbed tow truck. The truck driver must have been going nuts, because everyplace he wanted to secure the Europa down to down to the flatbed. I told him he couldn't lest he damage the car. We finally got home and rolled the stricken Europa into the garage. The problem turned out to be a bad ignition coil, which incidentally was the original AC unit from new.
Our family continued to expand as Allison was born in 1989, and then Andrew was born in 1994. Family life left no time for autocrossing and working the races anymore. And traffic to and from work had became so awful, that the Europa stayed home, rather than risk an accident with it. Time was taking its toll on the car, and disuse seemed to accelerate the deterioration process. In short order the master cylinder, another rear wheel bearing, the brake servos, and the shift linkage all gave up the ghost. Slowly though, the repairs were made as money and time permitted.
Luann and I would occasionally get a chance to take off for a weekend with the Lotus, like the 1996 Heartland British Car Festival in the Quad Cities. Running the autocross event on Saturday really got the old competitive juices flowing again. But it was obvious that the Europa (and the driver) needed a lot of work to be competitive again. Last September, we participated in the LOG 18 50th anniversary celebration of Lotus Cars in Atlanta, Georgia. We trailered the car for the sake of creature comfort, yet I missed the thrill and the challenge of those long distance drives that I used to take in the Europa.
I sure have had a lot of fun with my Europa over the past 25 years. Today, the Europa has just over 52,800 miles on the clock, and it still looks pretty good in its original yellow color (which I liked better than black anyway). There are still a few bugs to be ironed out, but nothing that keeps me from driving the car. And althoughI have had many moments of disappointment and frustration, I must say that the thrills and the joy of driving the car have outweighed them. It's still a blast to take the car through the cloverleafs and hairpins 15 MPH faster than the signs recommend, and then some. It's still a rush to put together a hot run on a parking lot full of pylons. And it still a thrill when other people (especially the girls) turn their heads to get a better look at this sharp little car. After all these years, it's still really just so much fun. I guess I'll just have to
keep it for another 25 years!
