I got an email from the new owner who was happy with the car, which made me feel good. He cleaned the car up from the transport to Canada and took it to the Toronto British car festival. There were over 1,000 cars there including a lot of Lotus cars. In the Elan, Esprit, Europa and other category there were 40 cars and the Europa took first place!
Well, it's gone now, another project out the door. About 3 1/2 years from the day Rich and I picked up the florescent green Europa at Jack Buchinger's out in Princeton to the night that I drove the bright shiny red Europa up the big trailer ramps at the K-mart parking lot. The Europa was fun in some ways, challenging in others. There were times I would really be looking forward to getting out to the garage to work on her, other times I was considering getting a giant sledge hammer out and beating the car to death. Overall it turned out pretty good, although I didn't really care for the way the cal felt to me personally. Not this particular car, just Europas in general are not for me. Too claustrophobic of an interior. Too hot inside. Didn't care for the pedal set up or the 5 speed with the looooooong tubes connecting the shifter to the trans all the way at the back of the car. It did look nice and ran nice and it was something to be very proud of.
I had brought another Lotus back from the dead. This makes about the 7th total restoration I've done and about the 15th Lotus I've owned. I don't think I will do another Europa project again, but I do have a 1964 Elan S1 project up at the lake house and a 1964 Cortina Estate Wagon sitting under my porch in Des Plaines waiting for me. Here I go again!
