Which legendary Lotus is the better buy, 7 or Elan?

Story by Tim and Tom Suddard

“It handled like it was on rails,” the proverbial old-timer at the bar always insists, tipsy with nostalgia. It doesn’t matter if he’s referring to a Mercedes or a TR6: His classic sports car handled better than whatever appliance he’s stuck driving today. 

Unfortunately for fond memories, they’re often dead wrong. A new Hyundai Accent can run circles around most little British cars, never mind all the half-restored examples one finds on the road today.

Lotus has been delivering excellent handling for decades–with minimalism as well as some creature comforts.

Sometimes, though, that man at the bar has it right. A handful of little British cars were ahead of their time, and their engineering sacrifices make them solid performers–and collectibles–to this day. 

Take two favorites from Lotus that shared the showroom floor back when The Beatles were big: the 7 and the Elan. Both models feature lightweight, clever designs that separated them from the pack and made them legends of the hobby. They don’t look anything alike, yet they were both held to the same innovative, weird and sometimes crazy design standards.

The Lotus 7: Minimalism for Masochists

The Lotus 7: Since 1957 it has offered no fat, no frills.

Put simply, the Lotus 7 is an icon. It debuted in 1957, and new examples of the same basic car are still available for purchase today. Lotus’s premise was straightforward: Build a lightweight, inexpensive, no-frills sports car, and people will buy it. Well, people did–and they’ve continued to do so for nearly 60 years.

The 7 was a refined version of the Lotus 6, which bears the honor of being company founder Colin Chapman’s first “production” car. Of course, just because something is called a production car doesn’t mean it’s normal. Or reasonable. Or even delivered fully assembled. 

Lots of Lotus 7s were delivered in kit form, skirting British taxes in the process. Tax laws said no assembly instructions could be included, so instead Lotus included disassembly instructions–to build the car, the buyer just read the instruction booklet in reverse. This strategy was symbolic of Lotus’s unconventional approach.

The 7 was a lesson in bare necessity. It exposed what car buyers thought they needed but really didn’t–a premise that forms the backbone of the company’s design philosophy to this day. Lightness took priority above all else, and it made the 7 fast, inexpensive and simple. Aluminum skin wrapped its steel tube frame, and buyers could choose from a variety of lightweight, low-power drivetrains. Figure you can find a Lotus 7 with anywhere from 37 to 125 horsepower.

Clever suspension systems, like an independent front that used the anti-roll bar as the forward link of the upper A-arm, stuck 7s to the track like glue. Their light weight and use of common parts also made them inexpensive to run, so winning races didn’t require a fat wallet.

If the 7 had one drawback, it was comfort–or a lack thereof. The side skirts featured awkward bulges just so the driver’s arm could fit inside. The roof took days to erect, or at least it seemed to in the middle of a downpour. The cockpit got hot. The ride was rough. 7s were much more at home on a track than a public road, but still, that’s what made them so much fun.

Our Test Car

Like most 7s, John Gault’s 1961 example has been modified. But why? Besides the usual reasons, like the car being old and temperamental, modifications are just a fact of life for Lotus owners. These were inexpensive cars, many of them built in home garages and then raced for years. Add in lots of combinations of parts available from the factory over the 7’s nearly 60-year production run, and it’s tough to find a stock one.

A self-described “7 nut,” John fell in love with the model in high school. A cash gift from his parents allowed him to bring home, in his words, “a very tired, worn-out race car that had been run to death, with a 997cc Ford and an MG starter jammed in with a piece of wood.”

Fast-forward through 35 years and two marriages, and John has turned his car into the Lotus he’d dreamt about as a teenager. It now sports a 1700cc Ford racing engine, a Ford Sierra five-speed transmission, and a narrowed Mazda RX-7 rear axle. An instrument panel mimicking a mid-’80s Caterham’s completes the package. 

The Lotus Elan: A True Sporting GT

The Lotus Elan adds some comfort to the mix, but doesn’t deaden the experience.

The 7 was clearly designed with apexes and helmets in mind. Actually, most of Lotus’s models weren’t even meant to be driven on the road. The company had always been a builder of race cars, but as the story goes, that isn’t all Colin Chapman wanted. He dreamed of selling boutique sports and GT cars like Ferrari, marketed with the same kind of racing pedigree. And, in typical Lotus fashion, the brand accomplished this goal in a completely unprecedented way. 

Its first attempt at a GT car was the Elite, and it was awesome. A fiberglass monocoque replaced the traditional body-on-frame layout of other cars of the era, with the suspension mounting points glassed right into the body. But while the Elite was a great car, it was also expensive and complicated to produce. 

So Lotus went back to the drawing board, and in 1962 it released the Elan. Like the Elite, this model was meant to be a comfortable touring car. And like the 7, it was inexpensive and simple. Lotus had somehow managed to combine the best of both worlds into a car that became the design inspiration for the original Miata.

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The foundation of the Elan was a steel backbone chassis that supported the suspension and running gear. Atop it sat a fiberglass body, open-topped at first but later joined by a coupe. Unlike the Elite, the Elan’s body wasn’t tasked with supporting the chassis, so it was easier to produce. 

The Elan was less barebones than the 7, too. In addition to pop-up headlights, the Elan sported a more proper convertible top–and a trunk. A four-seat model, called the Elan +2, eventually joined the lineup. Compared to the 7, the Elan was downright cushy. 

As a product of the ’60s, the Elan skipped the single-cam engines found in the original 7. Standard power came from the now-ubiquitous Lotus Twin Cam. 

Customers could still build their own Elan–another attempt to skirt the day’s tax laws–but most came turnkey. The Elan’s production lineage wasn’t infinite, though: Lotus ended two-seat production in 1973, and the +2 left showrooms two years later.

Our Test Car

Ross Robbins bought this 1965 Lotus Elan in 2005, and it suffered a major electrical fire mere hours after the money changed hands. Three years of work returned it to its former glory–with a few additions. It now has a master disconnect switch, eight fuses and seven relays hidden under the dash. Ross also added a new heavy-duty wiring harness along with a Denso alternator. 

Other than the electrical work, the Elan is pretty much original. The rear differential ratio has been changed, but that’s about it. 

Ross hasn’t been shy about driving his Elan. It’s been to the top of Mount Evans on the highest paved road in North America, around Talladega Superspeedway, and up Pikes Peak.

What's the Verdict?

It’s a tough decision, but we favor the Elan: amazing handling with less punishment. 

The Lotus 7 is a lot of fun. With it, Lotus gave the world an inexpensive, small, Spartan sports car that could rule the short race tracks and autocross courses of the world.

The Elan, in contrast, is the total package. It serves up stunning looks, great handling, and a level of comfort rarely felt in a sports car. The Elan would be the best car in the world if Lotus had spent a little more time on quality control and durability.

Both of these cars are great, but if we had to choose, it would be the Lotus Elan.

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