LOTUS EUROPA SPECIAL
TAM 24358
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Ages: 14 and up
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Size: 168mm, width: 73mm, height: 47mm
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Ready to assemble precision scale model kit
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Removable hood, shows twin carb engine
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Realistic cockpit sports instrument panel, high backed seats, 3-spoke steering wheel, and short gear shift.
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Lotus logo, emblems and mirror surfaces are recreated by metal transfers
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This kit requires paint and plastic cement to complete as shown
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Photo etched parts
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Optional rear wing and alloy rims
4950344243587
By the mid-1960s, the mid-engine vehicle configuration was well-established as the optimal design for Grand Prix cars, however almost no road vehicles yet used this arrangement. The Lotus Europa was a lightweight sports car masterpiece packed with features found more likely on a racing car than a road car of its era: a sleek, low body, mid-mounted engine and a lightweight, folded & welded "minimalist" boxed-steel backbone chassis with a fibreglass moulded body
Lotus planned the Europa to be a volume-produced, two-seater mid-engine sports coupe built to reasonable cost, quite an ambitious goal for the time. Like all Lotus vehicles of the era, the Europa was designed and built following Colin Chapman’s oft-stated philosophy of automotive design: "Simplify, then add lightness". To this end, a number of ingenious design approaches were made by Lotus to allow it to economically overcome the many challenges presented by the novel mid-engine arrangement. Europa’s were manufactured between 1966 and 1972 by Lotus Cars in Britain with a total of 9,230 cars having been built, and the Special shown here was the final version of the car. It had a “big valve” 126hp 1,558cc four-cylinder engine, five-speed transmission and lightweight alloy wheels.