Get another perspective on the Club Lotus Australia action at this year’s Bathurst 12-Hour thanks to these photographs from the weekend by Ashton Roskill.
Make sure to keep an eye out for John Tarren’s Lotus 51 on full noise across the top of Skyline, some more of the Donut King Exige V6 and the inevitable gazelles in the paddock!
And if you’re looking for more photos and a report on the weekend’s adventures, hit this link!
Catch up on all the early-2015 Lotus action in Western Australia, thanks to this brilliant report from Eddie Lankhorst.
Club Lotus Australia is full of interesting people doing interesting things with interesting cars.
We want to tell their stories, and through this develop and preserve a written history of the club, its members and their cars. So once a month we’re going to share one person’s story with you right here on the Club website!
Geoff Winder found his way to Club Lotus Australia like many of us did – searching for likeminded individuals with whom to talk Lotuses.
Finding himself as one of the few Lotus Esprit owners in the club at the time working on his own car, he became the Esprit Registrar to help others. Since the day he joined Geoff’s been an invaluable asset to the club and developed his knowledge of Esprits to an impressive degree. And since 2015 will see the 40th anniversary of the Lotus Esprit, when it came to writing our first Lotus Story, we knew exactly who to turn to!
Take a few minutes of your day to relax and enjoy our first Lotus Story, with Geoff Winder.
This single-axle trailer has been stolen from Erskine Park and any help in retrieving it would be greatly appreciated!
The black lightweight single-axle car trailer was stolen from Erskine Park on the 23rd of March. It is a unique, one-off, trailer suited only to light cars (under 1000 kilograms). It should stand out as almost all car trailers are tandem axle.
It has a clutched dual directional 1400kg winch, white rims and a spare mounted at the winch end. The last 800mm of the checker plate tread is beavered with an 80mm fall. This will make it easy to spot as it is a rare inclusion allowing clearance for low cars to be driven on and off.
Ramps are removable and stored up front by the winch. This trailer was brand new and in perfect glossy condition.
Rego is TA 14 KK, although it is highly likely that this has been replaced. The last four digits of the VIN are KL007.
The owner is more than happy to pass the refunded excess on with no questions asked to the wonderful person who finds this hopefully unmolested.
Please call (02) 9836 2699 or send us an email here if you have any information.
Our friends in Western Australia are recently back from their February early morning run, and you can catch up on all the action with this report thanks to Vicky Rowe and photo gallery thanks to Steve and Bee Grobler.
A short February means one very important thing – less time between editions of Lotus Notes! The team has completed the March edition of Lotus Notes and it’s now available to download from our members’ page.
The month’s features include:
And a whole lot more!
The newsletter is a membership benefit of Club Lotus Australia, and will as such require you to be logged in to your members account. Download it from our ‘Members‘ page.
If you’re not a member yet, hit this link to find out more about the club and why you should become one!
Please read this!
This might seem like a statement of the obvious, but I have had numerous complaints from members not knowing about what’s going on when details have been clearly provided in the newsletter and on the website. We can’t do more than that I’m afraid.
We’ve been a busy Club. Work’s kicked off the year a bit silly, but also most importantly from a Club perspective, 2015 has kicked off with a bang.
The first weekend in February saw a large group of us head north from Sydney to meet the LOST contingent (Lotus and Other Similar Thoroughbreds) just south of Newcastle. The trip up was a hoot (I took the Elan for a breath of fresh air) and the run back was even funnier (chasing rather startled motorcyclists up the Old Pacific Highway – they weren’t expecting to get the chivvy on from a 50-year-old sports car). And in between a convivial and delicious breakfast with the LOST crew – lovely to see you all.
Top of the Class comes the winning Lotus Exige V6 at the Bathurst 12hr over the second weekend of February. This is fast becoming (or perhaps has become) the best weekend of accessible high-class motorsport on the calendar, and this year almost 30 CLA members made the trek out there. Many congratulations to Lee Knappett and the team at Simply Sports Cars for the record-breaking preparation of the car (the chassis was only delivered four weeks before the race), and to Tony Allford, Mark O’Connor and Peter Leemhuis for successfully piloting it home in one piece and at the front of their class.
Congratulations also to both John Tarran and Jake Hobbs for taking on the mountain in the Formula Ford support class.
Our General Meeting and first Committee meeting of the year combined at the Woolwich Pier Hotel (probably the last time we try that – the screaming kids put my hair on end more than once) and the minutes are available on the website in the member’s section. There’s lots planned, so please make sure to keep up to date with the calendar on the website as this is the only place it is now published.
The first of those dates is the 6-8th March, with a run to the Snowy Mountains, staying in Thredbo on the Friday and Saturday nights, enjoying the delights of the road around Mt Kosciuszko on Saturday and home on the Sunday. If you haven’t registered, drop James a line on jfchan@hotmail.com.
Our March General Meeting on the 10th is going to be at Ashton’s Shed. Bring your hard hat to avoid headaches – have a laugh at my expense.
March also sees the first round of the CSCA sprints, with the CLA round on Sunday 22nd March – entries are looking great already (www.motorevententry.org), with most of the usual suspects present, and some new faces joining the fray. Thanks to all of you who support this event – the usual dinner is likely to be at the Astor pub on Saturday night.
Also on 22nd, for those not joining in the fun in Goulburn, there is the opportunity for a Cars & Coffee event up in Kurrajong in the Blue Mountains – 8am in the village – catch up with the local crowd – there are several CLA members likely to be present.
And finally the 29th March will see the sale of a collection of Lotus cars and parts – see the website here for full details, photos and what you need to do to be there if you have a hankering for a restoration project.
Elsewhere you may have read of the relaunch of the Lotus Evora, with a distinctly Lamborghini front end – from the comments I have seen, it will be very much a matter of personal taste, but it is Jean-Marc Gale’s first statement of intent, and based on the build quality, I think it bodes well for Lotus. And it’s lighter and more powerful than its predecessor, which indicates an understanding of the less-is-more ethos so close to ACBCs heart.
I think that’s enough for now – I look forward to seeing you out and about in the car soon.
In the meantime, keep safe, right side up and on the black stuff!
Pip pip,
Ashton
LOTUS 2015 will hold an auction to raise funds for the Country Fire Foundation during the event later this year, and they’re looking for our help to make it an even bigger success!
They’re looking for interesting, high quality items that we can donate to the auction. If you or any of your family, friends or colleagues have products, services or experiences that you would like to donate, please get in touch.
Proceeds from your donation will go towards the Country Fire Foundation, which provides support services to volunteer fire fighters and their families. This is a very worthy cause and we are pleased to be able to support it in any way that we can.
The auction will be conducted by a celebrity auctioneer on Saturday evening on the 3rd of October, 2015, after the Concours d’Elegance. Donations will be acknowledged on the website and in the auction notes.
We’re thrilled to support this great cause, and appreciate your support as well!
Each year we get together and head out to the Bathurst 12-Hour for a brilliant high-octane weekend spent with good friends and surrounded by magic motoring machinery.
This year our group was made up of some thirty Club Lotus Australia members, including our good friend Martin Duursma, who was armed with his camera and has kindly shared the results of his efforts here.
Kicking off a year of Lotus adventures in style, the Newcastle LOST fraternity held their first run of 2015 this past weekend in the form of a cruise to Awaba House Restaurant. Read on for the tale of the day, thanks to Ashton Roskill.
We found them! The LOST fraternity that is… they live in and around Newcastle, and, contrary to popular belief, it’s not that hard to get there – in fact we had a blast doing so to meet them for breakfast on Sunday.
The Sydney group massed at the McDonalds in Thornleigh (along with some Mustangs heading for Cars and Coffee), and promptly at 7.30 headed for the Old Pac Highway north.
Apart from the inevitable push-bikes, it was a fun run, popping us out onto the freeway (that bit’s not so much fun in the Elan I must admit) before meeting the LOST (Lotus and Similar Thoroughbreds) contingent at the Morriset junction. We were led through the backroads to Awaba restaurant on the shores of Lake Macquarie, and enjoyed a very fine breakfast, good coffee and exceptional company.
Many thanks to James Chan and Jack McLaughlan for organising each end! And thank you to all who joined in. As you can see from the photos, we enjoyed a tremendous showing. Thanks too to Mark Alexander and Simon Kalis for the photos – of course I forgot my camera – again!
Ashton Roskill