‘World’s Worst Cars’ Book Redemption: Lotus Elite

It’s time again to have an archaic Commodore PET computer pick a random page from the 2005 book, The World’s Worst Cars, written by Craig Cheetham, and then defend and redeem the car shown on that page, because I maintain that Mr.Cheetham has created a book not of The World’s Worst Cars, as the title claims, but rather of some of the World’s More Interesting Cars. Most of the cars in this book – perhaps all – do not deserve to be trapped in between the covers of this deceitful tome. And I’m going to redeem them, one by one. So let’s do it! We had a little break while I was at Monterey Car Week, but now we’re back! To redeem!

There’s only one right way to do this, of course, and that’s to have my Commodore PET pick a random page, via a small program in BASIC that chooses a random number between 1 and 317.

Let’s see what car the PET commands us to redeem today!

Page 46! And what car lives on page 46?

Oh wow: the Lotus Elite/Eclat. Oh, Craig. What have you done?

I think this may be one of the more unfair entries we’ve seen in this book, and that’s saying something. The Lotus Elite/Eclat was a revolutionary car for Lotus when it came out in 1974. Remember, Lotuses were known for being tiny, light, nimble, two-seat little corner-carving monsters, and now here was Lotus giving everyone, seemingly out of the blue, a roomy four-seater hatchback/almost-shooting-brake vehicle.

You know all the hand-wringing articles wondering if the new Lotus Eletre electric SUV is “really a Lotus?” Well, the uproar was like that, just 50 years earlier.

The Elite was the first “civilized” Lotus; you could drive and hear the radio, you could sit comfortably, with luggage and three friends, all things that would be fantasies in Lotuses that came before. Reviewers of the time appreciated this new kind of Lotus; more GT car than sports car, but much more comfortable and usable than other Lotuses. And, it still handled, drove, and rode wonderfully, thanks in part to a Colin Chapman-designed backbone chassis and lightweight fiberglass bodywork that used a new method known as Vacuum-Assisted Resin Injection (VARI). The end result was a surprisingly roomy car that only weighed 2600 pounds.

The striking, wedge-like design was penned by Oliver Winterbottom I think looks like some of the best of ’70s design, and did not, as our Craig Cheetham called it, “embodie[d] all that was gaudy and uncultured about 1970s fashion.” Really, Craig? I mean, look at it:

That’s just not ugly, I’m sorry. It’s sleek! It’s like what I imagine AMC Gremlin designer Dick Teague imagined the Gremlin would look like in his head, before cruel reality worked it over but good.

The Eclat was similar (and actually used the exact same fiberglass molds from that horizontal character line down) but had a more fastback design:

The interior was really remarkable, designed by Italdesign and having some of the best back seats ever seen in a production vehicle, ever:

On top of that, while it looks like a hatchback sort of design, it wasn’t, not exactly; there was a glass window dividing the cargo area from the passenger compartment, to keep noise and – if you were driving with something big enough it stuck out of the hatch – exhaust fumes from getting in the cabin:

That’s quite a level of refinement for any car, especially a Lotus! Plus, the car was surprisingly safe, incorporating steel beams into the doors even before American safety regulations demanded it, and the Elite actually won an important European safety award, the sort of thing that was usually handed out to Volvos.

Now, it wasn’t the fastest car out there, with a 2.2-liter inline four making around 155 horsepower, not bad for the time, all thimngs considered. This engine also ended up in Jensen-Healeys.

The book’s condemnation of the Elite mostly seems to revolve around reliability issues, especially overheating and cylinder head issues, which very likely were a thing, but we’re talking about a British car from the 1970s – is that kind of unreliability really unique to this car?

Also, Cheetham notes that electrical issues could cause one of the pop-up headlights to stay up, like it’s winking, but he doesn’t note the smart detail about the Elite’s design: when a headlight motor failed, the light failed in the up position, so you still had the ability to use the light! That’s good thinking.

I’m just going to end this with a contemporary video review of the Elite:

… and a quote from a contemporary review of the car:

Why aren’t Camaros like this? And Mustangs? And Monzas? How can Colin Chapman, who is supposed to be a racer and therefore know nothing about passenger-car design, produce a more efficient passenger car than General Motors or Ford?

– Patrick Bedard, Car and Driver Magazine, 1975

Those words alone you’d think would be enough to keep the Elite/Eclat out of a book like this; but, as our boy Craig has shown to us before, actual reason and facts have no place when it comes to what gets flung into the fiery pit of The World’s Worst Cars.

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