Street Find: Lotus Europa

I just bought a 1970 S2 Type65 largely because of your amazing videos (Spencer/Petrolicious and Ben/Westhavenbrook). Low miles (30K) but hasn’t been used since 1977, so some refurbishment has been necessary, including tires and Spax shocks and springs (new springs are largely to ‘fix’ the bow-up look of the Type 65). Spencer’s car (S2 Type 54 if I remember correctly from the video) would have been flat from day-1 . Was that imported from Canada Spencer? I’m in Victoria BC. – John Taylor

I used to autox one. It was impressive how well it could keep up or beat cars 40 years newer than it, all while on cheap tires. But you did kind of have to have a sense of humor about it. Some friends of mine and I made a movie about it. It got good air time in the autox community: https://youtu.be/DoSnoayLuIM

My best friend’s brother owned one. Rich hippie who worked at the Ford steel mill and had nothing better to do with his cash hoard. We called it “the breadwagon.” It almost never ran. Constant state of repair.

My memories of my time with a particular Europa are sweet to say the least.
A couple weeks ago one shows up at the tire store where I work part time as the courtesy van driver. ( great job , for a retired old fart) . Anyway, the kids that work there are scared to death of the Lotus , have no idea how to even drive the little bugger in to the shop.
Old man to the rescue !!
I hobble my self in to the seat , and immediately feel at home. Got it in the shop , but getting back out of the seat was a real challenge.
Sweet little cars, mostly misunderstood by the public. If memory serves they came with a Renault motor. That may have been part of the problem .