Re: 1956 Lotus Eleven history

[Spit...@aol.com]

http://psychoontyres.blogspot.com/2011/03/west-coast-detailing-lotus-xi.html

 

West Coast Detailing - Lotus XI

A couple of weeks ago I looked at Ed Arnaudin's photo of Floyd Aaskov's Lotus XI at Thompson CT taken in 1958, where you will find details about the Lotus XI model. 



Today we are looking Carlyle Blackwell's photograph of Jack Nethercutt's Lotus XI at Paramount Ranch in 1956/57.

It would appear that Jacks Lotus XI ran a similar 4 cylinder 1098 cc /67 cui Coventry Climax engine to Floyd Aaskov. One thing that stands out about Jacks car is how amazingly clean it looks, it looks as well detailed in many other photographs I have seen of this vehicle.

 

In a message dated 10/19/2014 4:22:40 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, lotus-...@googlegroups.com writes:

Since this thread has been re-energized I thought others might like to hear what has been going on with this car.  When Mark Murray started the thread he was justifiably frustrated with not getting any new answers from Victor and me, and in preparation to sell the car he reached out here and in other places for someone who might know more about his un-numbered Eleven.  The new owner in the UK has done the same thing, including questions on the AutoSport Nostalgia Forum.  We were back where we began, looking at the same facts / data as mentioned at the top of this thread. And once again we went nowhere with it.  But this year two new interesting discoveries have given us hope.

First, on an old photo that Charles Engberg (Bob's brother) has had on his wall for years, it was noticed that an Eleven he once owned had a large oval cutout in the rear undertray, just ahead of the tube the tail section pivots on. This car was Charles' "other" Eleven, not to be confused with #216 which is buried in his back yard. This other Eleven was a bit of a mystery to him too, and in the 1960s he was running it with an assortment of panels and parts borrowed from #216. The oval cutout was strange but identical to one on the original rear undertray from the Murray car. It was evidence that the Murray Eleven had been in California in the early 1960s, not back East or in the UK as the Murrays' had been told.

Second, the new owner provided us with the serial number from what he (and the Murrays) believed to be the original Climax block. It was a number that, if Lotus used engines more or less in sequence, would have been installed in an Eleven built in the 213-215 range. We know this isn't the way to arrive at the truth but we quickly eliminated other cars and found a smoking gun pointed at #214. This was the Jack Nethercutt Eleven, most notable for being featured on the cover of the March, 1957 issue of Road & Track magazine. That car has been missing from the record for a long time since.

In studying online photos of the Nethercutt Eleven one thing about it stands out: it doesn't have the normal air vents -- cutouts -- in the tail. So how did air trapped in the tail escape? This little trace of a clue has made us very curious about the Jack Nethercutt Eleven and inspired a lot more online photo searches. If any of the other enthusiasts here can find a ground-level photo of the rear of Nethercutt's Eleven they can help solve this identity mystery or send us back to the drawing board.

Regards,

Jay Sloane
PS: the whole question of the 207 marks deserves another thread. It will take cooperation from many owners to reach a satisfactory answer. 

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[ANDREW BRADSHAW]

Jay if it helps send me the engine number and i can ask tony mantle for the climax information he may say no but i can try.

andy b

----Original message----
From : lotus-...@googlegroups.com
Date : 19/10/2014 - 21:22 (BST)
To : lotus-...@googlegroups.com
Subject : Re: 1956 Lotus Eleven history