Coys Auction - Grand Prix, Competition, Touring & Rally Cars and Collectors' Items
Autosport International - The Racing Car Show
National Exhibition Centre
Birmingham
B40 1NT UK
Saturday 16th January 2009
Collectors' Items at 12.30pm
Motor Cars at 3.00pm
Registration Number: N/A Chassis Number: 22
When Lotus announced the Elan people immediately made plans to race it. Colin Chapman, however, was adamant that the Elan was a road car not a racing car. Despite his strictures, people assumed that anything with a Lotus badge had to be a racer. Since people would insist on racing the Elan, Lotus instituted a development programme and from that came a competition model, the 26R. Very few genuine 26Rs were built, approximately 97, and they remain today among the most collectible of Lotus sports racing cars.
Lotus never raced a works Elan 26R and it was left to privateer teams such as Walker Racing and Chequered Flag to take on the challenge of competing in them. However, Colin