On Dec 23, 2006, at 1:38 PM, Charles Helps (Historic
Lotus Register, MK VI specialist) posted the following
on another email list:
Dr Michael Henderson now lives in Australia - I asked
him on an AtlasF1
BB thread (
http://forums.autosport.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=92040
) "Am I
right in thinking that you compiled a register of
Lotuses a long time
ago? Does is it still exist and is it available to
current day
researchers please?"
He replied "Charles, yes, I was involved in the Lotus
Register, but
it's a bit of a sad story.The original idea was that
of Nick Syrett, a
friend of mine and then Secretary of the BRSCC, and
Ian Smith. It would
have been started in about 1954, and I took its
compilation over from
Nick in about 1955 or '56. The model was the Bugatti
Book.At that time
it went pretty well, as we built up a pretty complete
register of all
the Lotuses and their owners. I have to acknowledge
that this would now
be of inestimable value to all Lotus researchers.
However, anyone
familiar with Lotus will understand how it all started
to come apart -
switches in registration numbers and chassis plates,
dodgy and
unreported changes in ownership, and so on and so on.
Despite that
activity and racing my Seven, I finally managed to
graduate in
medicine, and had to give it up. My clear recollection
is that in 1960
or '61 I passed on all the material to Lotus, by that
time at Cheshunt.
However, a few years later Graham Arnold (I think it
was) asked me
where it was, so it had all gone missing somehow.The
above is the first
time this story has been told, so perhaps someone
could tell me how I
can get it on a Lotus thread, because the Register
might conceivably
turn up through that channel."
Anyone know how we might locate the first Register of
Lotuses? Is
anyone in touch with John Standen or Warren King? I
think that Roy
Badcock was the contact at Lotus in the late seventies
and he gave HLR
the official chassis lists but they started at about
chassis 145. Is
Roy Badcock still around?
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