Anyone know what happened to...

[v8thunder]

The GKN Europa, otherwise known as the Lotus Europa 47D 3.5 litre - a one-off (Lotus produced) with a 3.5l V8. apparently it had similar performance to the Lamborghini Miura of the day. I only know of this car through a book - Lotus, by Roy Bacon. It would be interesting to know more about Lotus's lost V8 supercar.
Do any Lotus gurus know anything about it here?

[clanger]

I remember this car well!! - early 70's had an Elan Sprint - This Renault Europa S1 with big wheels came past me at circa 90mph on the A1 - I gave chase - no renault going to outgun me (the impetuosity of youth ) but at 120mph I ran out of power and it disappeared into the distance. 5 miles on it was refuelling at the garage I stopped at. Had a long chat with the 'pilot' - what an awesome car - he told me the brakes were really not up to the power - I've often wondered myself what happened to the beast

[clanger]

Just dusted down one of my Lotus books, some interesting facts on the GKN 47D:
Rover V8 engine bored and stroked to 4.4litres, ZF 5 speed transmission, 292bhp at 7000revs, 0-100mph in 11.1 secs, top speed circa 180mph .

It states that it forms part of the G A Vandervell collection? - True Supercar of in its day. Figures look pretty impressive 36 years on..

>> Edited by clanger on Thursday 26th June 23:34

>> Edited by clanger on Thursday 26th June 23:35

[Simonelite501]

After an extensive trawl around the various search engines, the only info I have come up with is that G.A Vandervell was a British F1 racer who drove the "Thin Wall Special" which is on display at Donnington. I have not managed to unearth any info on his collection, pity.

[hedgerley]

It seems its been under restoration for the past couple of years. Check out [url]www.apocalypse.org/pub/u/seven/pics/cars/47d/[/url] for info. The last update on the restoration page was December 2002.

[hedgerley]

It seems its been under restoration for the past couple of years. Check out [url]www.apocalypse.org/pub/u/seven/pics/cars/47d/[/url] for info. The last update on the restoration page was December 2002.