The genius of Colin Chapman is evident in every one of his cars. Each of his creations were uniquely endowed, not only with clever engineering, but a special blend of design and mechanical innovation that seemed to illude virtually all other manufacturers, or at least be years ahead of them. Chapman didn’t work alone, but his upstart staff of college student apprentices and rogue engineers were grossly underfunded. Budgets were often non-existent, and much of their innovative methods and processes were real-time experiments as production moved forward with concurrent “Ah-hah” moments, using customers to test the limits of their cars. Gathering steam as an upstart volume manufacturer, Lotus had developed a few cars to modest success, but with just five years of shoe-string resources at hand and operating out of a makeshift former horse stable, in 1957, Lotus Cars would bring forth one of the most advanced cars of the decade, the Lotus Elite. The Elite, for all intents and purposes, would change everything.
