e e e e e e e e E?

dare i ask... but why do they all begin with E, i mean just go back a page and look at all the E's, theres only one that dont, i'm going to have a wander though the web n try n find the answer soo, watch this space, but why do u think? or do u no?

i now know why lotus... He ( being Colin Chapman) named the car "Lotus"; he never confirmed the reason but one (of several) theories is that it was after his then girlfriend (later wife) Hazel, who he nicknamed "Lotus blossom". - from wiki


The Elise was named after Romano Artioli's, the company's former chairman's, granddaughter, "Elisa" but why the rest?

Even the new roadster is baring a name with 'e' lol ... The all new Lotus Eagle which with no official name yet, the car has been dubbed 'Project Eagle' and looks set to go on sale in 2009.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Business/British-Manufacturer-Lotus-Releases-Images-Of-New-Project-Eagle-Roadster/Article/200807315037530?f=rss

my son and i had the same conversation early today. someone out there must know.

well thats what i was hoping, sigh, not gettin very far

tashuka wrote:well thats what i was hoping, sigh, not gettin very far

It's a Lotus Secret Tash ... shhh ... lol!

seems like a well kept one. on a mission to ind out now

yay mis on!

anyone got any further with this...?

anywhere anyone?

tashuka wrote:anywhere anyone?

Well you know I haven't. Perhaps it started as a tradition and has just continued where possible?

Any one know what they stand for, and why the colours?

I do:

The letters at the top of the logo are the initials of Lotus' founder, Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman. Colin Chapman called his car a LOTUS because once you drive it, you will forget all the others. The green background is British Racing Green, the colour of British cars in his day. The yellow background symbolizes the sunny days Mr. Chapman hoped lay ahead for his company.

Still no success on the E front!

As far as I can tell the tradition of giving the road cars names beginning with 'E' was not planned but just happened. The first road car (i.e. car developed by Lotus for sale as a road car rather than a car to go reacing with) was, of course, the type 14 'Elite' and the next road car was the Type 26 'Elan' both names with a certain amount of panache but, at that stage, I don't think there was any firm plan to name the road cars with names starting with 'E'.

The next road car was the Type 46 'Europa' but this is where it might have started because originally it was planned to call this car 'Elfin' - but this had nowhere near as much panache as 'Elite' or 'Elan'. It was then decided to call thecar the 'Concorde' in view of the French connection with Renault engines but, because the first batch of cars were sold in France they were labelled as 'Europe' and when the cars went on sale in UK they beacme 'Europa'.

The list of 'E' names is actualy quite short and most have been used on more than one 'type'. The full list is Elite, Elan, Europa, Eclat, Excel, Esprit, Elise, Exige, and Evora. The problem is finding a name beginning with 'E' which you can register throughout the world as the name of a product you make - can you think of any suitable 'E' words that haven't been registered by someone else.....

Those that have known me for some time will know that I much prefer to refer to Lotus cars by their type number - it causes much less confusion ultimately ......

(Edited to add Eclat (type 76 and 84)following the later posts. It was, of course, an oversight. Sorry! Interestingly, type 76 was also used for a F1 car and is largely believed to be an example of how much Team Lotus had drifted away from the road car division by this time - 1974-75)

Hi, thought I should add to your list of E names for Lotus, you seem to have missed Eclat. This was the feature car for the latest LDC Chicane magazine issue 84

Regards Dan

eclat22 wrote:Hi, thought I should add to your list of E names for Lotus, you seem to have missed Eclat. This was the feature car for the latest LDC Chicane magazine issue 84

Regards Dan

Hello and welcome along Dan ...

Glad to see you have made it on here after chatting at the NEC, and even more so it seems you have corrected us on that one ... fancy forgetting to mention the Eclat! Also, congratulations on a brilliant article in Chicane and some fantastic photos also.

hey dan, welcome along


i think it should be a eclipse, a rare must see experience!

tashuka wrote:hey dan, welcome along
i think it should be a eclipse, a rare must see experience!

I'm afraid Mitsubishi already have that one with the old Eclipse and the new one due 2009 I think?

gits!

hi guys. still on a mission to sort out the E's. think it may be a closly garded secret.

On reflection it may all have started with the Eleven. Up until then the cars had used Roman numerals to describe the Type No but this car was, apparently always known as the 'Eleven' or '11'. Clearly this begins with 'E' and may have started a trend. Not all Elevens were race cars and most were road registered. The Type 14 Elite may have continued that trend but, of course there had been the (racing only) Type 12 in the meantime (but no Type 13) so I suspect the Elite was named such to describe its aspiration which was as a road GT car that could be raced with success at Le Mans. Elite would be a very suitable name for a car of that type given the usual meaning of the word. The Elan was named as such by Ron Hickman (the designer) as far as I am aware and that was probably the first conscious decision to contine the use of E names for the road cars. Elan also has a most suitable usual meaning (combinatio of style and vigour) for a fast road car. That would have been enough to set the trend.

I have read many books and spoken to many who were involved in the early days of the marque but I never recall having read about, or being told about a deliberate plan to give the roiad cars E names. I think it just happened by accident as decribed above.

Also, back to the list - I missed out another one which never made it into production - the Etna V8. I suppose that technically you could add the 'Eagle' as well.......

And now, for what it's worth (just a bit of fun) some speculative words I wrote some years ago about the origins of the name Lotus for Colin Chapman's cars.....


E.R.A., B.R.M., B.M.C., B.M.W., Ford, Ferrari, even TVR all have meaning. They are, of course, the names of car manufacturers and every one of them gives an absolute clue as to why the cars bear that name. But not Lotus. Lotus cars are world renowned for their handling and performance and Colin Chapman is most highly respected as an engineer and manufacturer of sports and racing cars. From the second car that he built they were all known as ‘Lotus’. If there is anyone out there who knows why that is so, and there are at least one or two, then they are not saying. Those who were around the Great Man at the time must, surely, have had an inkling as to why he called them Lotus. As far as I am aware none of them has ever let slip the thinking behind the Great Man’s logic, not even Hazel who was around from the very beginning of the Lotus story. No biographer has, as yet, told us where the name came from.

So……..I’m going to do some speculating. This will probably all be wide of the mark but if it amuses me, and hopefully you, then it will have served a purpose.

Everyone has heard about the lotus flower, of course, but how many actually know what it is. Could this have inspired Chapman? The plants are commonly grown in Asia for their rhizomes and seeds. Asian water lotus is closely related to water lilies (Nymphaea), and is sometimes placed in the water lily family (Nymphaeaceae). The fact is that many parts of the flowers and leaves of the lotus, Nelumbo nucifera, also known as the Sacred Lotus, are used in some way. They can be brewed into a delightful tea, and are sometimes steeped in wine. The flowers are edible and, in particular, the petals are often placed in soups or used to garnish a dish. The large seeds, also (mistakenly) called its 'fruit,' can be eaten raw, roasted, candied, or popped like corn. The seed extract is known to make a calmative pipeful in a traditional relaxing and inebriating smoke, similar to a mild cannabis. The thick, starchy rhizomes are boiled, stir-fried and pickled. This isn’t all spiritual ‘mumbo-jumbo’ either. There is, apparently, scientific evidence that the traditional beliefs of the benefits of extracts of the lotus ‘fruit’, i.e. that it dispels toxic heat in the heart, benefits the kidneys, strengthens the spleen, helps control diarrhea, and acts as an astringent (restricts) for spleen deficiency, excessive dreaming, involuntary emission, functional bleeding, and leukorrhea (a vaginal discharge) are well founded. Scientific research has revealed that extracts can dilate coronary arteries, relax smooth uterine muscle, neutralize toxicity, and inhibit swollen infection of the nose and throat. Not a lot of people know that and, although he did go to university, and so anything could have happened in hall, I don’t suppose that Colin Chapman did either and even if he did it seems an unlikely inspirational source for a great name. So, I don’t think we’re on track here.

However, Lotus blossoms are sacred to Hindus and Buddhists because of their ancient shamanist function. Some spiritual teachings have it that the Lotus Blossom symbolizes the inseparability of the cause & effect, the provision and reality, and the source and manifestation of enlightenment… Did Chapman know this and could this be an attempt to relate the symbolism to the expected driving sensation? Symbolics (sic) I suspect. But there is a whole religion devoted to this and the teachings of the Lotus Sutra (seriously!) should not be overlooked.

The Lotus Sutra (this is a great name for a car) is one of the most important texts in Buddhism and is considered by many as its finest gem. It is one of the most famous scriptures of Mahayana Buddhism and is the second of three sutras. The defining doctrine of Mahayana Buddhism is the belief that all people can reach an enlightened state (now we’re talking!). What is striking about the Lotus Sutra and Mahayana Buddhism is its emphasis on devotion and faith and it tells us how profound and infinite the Buddha's wisdom is - that enlightenment is not something that can be grasped as an intellectual concept, that it cannot be fully expressed in words. While praising the Buddha's wisdom in this way, it also declares that the purpose of the Buddha's appearance in the world is to make this ineffable wisdom accessible to all beings and enable them to attain enlightenment. So, did Chapman want us to believe that enlightenment could be achieved by driving a ‘Lotus’ car. Possibly, but I’m sure engineers don’t think like that. In any case had this been the inspiration, all Lotus road cars would now bear a name beginning with ‘S’ not ‘E’. ‘Test drive the Lotus Sutra at a dealer near you today………..’

So where to next for inspiration? . If someone says to you "Beware of Greeks bearing Gifts" what would this be in reference to and what could it possibly mean to you? ‘Don’t take sweets from the Duke of Edinburgh’, you might think but it is actually a reference to Homer's Odyssey. The Lotus Tree (not a good name for a car and not the same plant as that related to water lilies and discussed above) is a member of the buckthorn family, and bears large fruit whose flesh may be used for making bread and fermented drinks. This is the fruit referred to by Homer and eaten by the Lotus-Eaters which made them forget the past and live in blissful habitual idleness. Mmmmm…. not too promising but let’s dig a little deeper. The hero, Ulysses, finds his ship anchored off the country of the lotus-eaters (now widely believed to be what we know as Libya or possibly a Greek island nearby). He sends some of his crew to see what the inhabitants are like. But, Ulysees didn’t know about a sweet fruit called the lotus, which caused men who tasted it to forget everything. Any crewmen who ate the lotus, the honey-sweet fruit, lost all desire to send a message back, much less return to the ship, their only wish to linger there with the lotus eaters, grazing on lotus. They became indolent, dreamy and forgetful, turning their backs on a life of duty, honor and reality. (Now, doesn’t that sound just like a day spent in the garage with your Lotus car the only thing worthy of attention, or a day at the track driving blissfully round the circuit without a thought for the need to go to work tomorrow.) When informed about the situation Ulysses had to restrain his men from going ashore and had to forcibly drag the rest of them back to the ships. There are many things today which may at first appear to be pleasant or friendly, but which may actually be obstacles in one's life. Just like the lotus eaters, and just like owning a Lotus car!

Homer's Odyssey is thought to have been written around 850BC. In an interesting twist here, none other than George Chapman (1559 – 1634) was responsible for one of the best known translations of Homer’s work. Chapman was a playwright. He also wrote a play called ‘Widow’s Tears’ – how many of us have a Lotus widow waiting for us right now? In another aside and in an attempt to combat rampant ageism among Lotus owners, I shall refer you to one of George’s best known quotations, "Young men think old men are fools; but old men know young men are fools" (my italics, not his). So, was ACBC a descendant? Did he know of George’s translation of the Odyssey and the state of utopia induced by the lotus, and did this influence the Great Man when naming his cars? I’ve no idea…….but it doesn’t seem very likely does it.

We haven’t yet had a look at acronyms…. could the word Lotus actually be an acronym? We’ve all heard the jokey ‘Loads of Trouble Usually Serious’ but this clearly could not have been appropriate in the early days before customers and in any case no self-respecting maestro would make such a poor joke of his work. I thought about ‘Lots Of Tubes, Unusually Stressed’ but the first tubular space-framed car was the Mark 6, all the previous cars having used a modified Austin 7 chassis, so I must be wide of the mark here.

We generally surmise that Chapman wanted his first car to be named in a way which was more imaginative than his contemporary trialists could manage – lots of people had Austin 7 based trials cars and they usually called them something like ‘Austin Special’. (As an aside, a recently built Austin 7 racing car has been named ‘The B&Q Special’ by its creator, Tom Hardman, so the trend has not really diminished over the years!) Trials were mainstream motor sport at the time and were widely reported. Interestingly, contemporary reports of Colin’s trialing exploits show that the first car was referred to as an ‘Austin Seven Special’ and not a Lotus so there is some doubt about when the name actually came into use. Certainly the ‘Mark 2’ was advertised as ‘Lotus’ when it was offered for sale in September 1950 but the ‘Mark 1’ was advertised as ‘Austin Seven Special’ when it was offered for sale in November 1950. It seems, therefore, beyond doubt that the original car became known as the Lotus Mark 1 retrospectively.

So, in the time that it has taken me to put this piece together I have made no progress at all in determining a plausible inspiration for the Lotus name. In his book ‘Colin Chapman, Wayward Genius’, Mike Lawrence puts forward a few more apocryphal ideas but, more seriously and tantalisingly, he suggests that he knows the real answer. Despite other revealing details being laid bare he has declined to disclose this closely guarded secret. And I’ve run out of ideas. I wonder if it will ever become general knowledge? Oh Well! For the time being my cars will be Leisure Objects of The Utopian Sort.