LCR Forum

I owned a mk 1 Lotus Cortina in Toledo, Ohio in 1970-71. I bought it from a guy who had recently moved from the Chicago area. Someone had neatly stenciled: "Powered by Lotus" in Sherwood Green on the passenger side of the vertical part of the trunk lid. I eventually sold it to another guy named Chuck From the Columbus area if memory serves for $100.00 after throwing a rod on the Ohio Turnpike. I still have dreams about that car. I wonder what happebed to it?
Chuck

hi chuck, that must of been really strange owning such a car over there, it must have been dwarfed by the size of the big yank tanks and muscle cars of the time

Hi Dave,
There were other small european cars around back then, so the size of the car wasn't so much of a factor. VWs, Renaults, Fiats, "plain vanilla" Cortinas and a few others weren't uncommon. The LC was a true exotic in my part of the world. I doubt that there were 100 people in that city of a half million people who even knew what it was. It's hard to be a snob when when nobody knows what you're driving.
Chuck

Hi Chuck. If you feel the need to become a LC owner again you need to get back in the market quick. Until recently cars in the US were changing hands for cheap money (ie Between $10K and $20K) compared with the rest of the world.

The USA has now woken up to what a bargain they were and now you regularly here prices near $40K for the nice ones.

Ok - so they're not up to the $200K that some of your vintage US cars are making - the prices certainly aren't going down.

Bob Woolner has photos of a Lotus Cortina roller on his web page that was in Cleveland, Ohio area. I believe its be sold but the photos are still there with a contact name and email. I think its out in Seattle area now.

http://www.lotus-cortina.com/photos/shell/shell.htm

Someone has got there work cut out trying to get that back on the road!