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Historic Lotus Register | News |
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The 49th Annual Dinner will take place at 19:00 on Saturday 16th November 2024 at Stanton Manor, Stanton Saint Quintin, Wiltshire. This will be preceded by the AGM at 16:30. The AGM will also be available as a Zoom video conference.
The Dinner is priced at £55 per person. Please print and complete the booking form and return to Nigel Halliday ASAP.
Members can book rooms at the hotel at a discounted rate, this should be done directly with the hotel, telephone 0044 (0) 1666 837552, option 1, or by email to reservations@stantonmanor.com, clearly quoting 'Lotus'. The discount rate will expire on 28th October 2024.
Richard Hinton reports -
"On Sunday 30th June 80 Lotus cars and 20 other classics assembled in Albury, Hertfordshire for the annual Historic Lotus Register Summer Gathering and Picnic. A wide selection of Lotus models attended covering the manufacturer's history from the early 1950s up to today.
With HLR Chairman Nigel Halliday in charge, the parking was carefully arranged with the earliest cars in a circle and the others grouped in model clusters.
We were thankfully blessed with a nice warm sunny day with blue skies in a year that will be remembered as unseasonably wet and cold. 150 people sat in deck chairs, chatting cars and much else, in a field next to a stretch of water in open countryside in East Hertfordshire. Hot food and drinks were available. Many were so keen they arrived early, some having made 300 mile round trips just to be here.
By midday the car display was a magnificent tribute to the history of the road going cars of the Lotus Car Company started in 1948 right up to examples of the new Lotus Eletre and Emira models.
Grateful thanks to all who attended and gave their time to help it run smoothly. Anyone up for a repeat next year?"
Thanks are due to Richard for organising the event, those who helped both before and on the day, and of course, to those who attended!. Photographs courtesy of Christine Hood, Alex Banyard, Ian Croft, Alan Nobbs, and Jacquie Martin
The 'For Sale' page has been updated - it will now include the advertisements from the current issue of Historic Lotus.
The Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs (FBHVC) has issued a Press Release, which members might find useful to read, regarding the introduction of E10 petrol and its use in classic cars.
The full article is available on the FBHVC website here, or can be downloaded here. Parts of it are reproduced below.
After an extensive consultation process, the Department for Transport has introduced legislation to mandate E10 petrol as the standard 95-octane petrol grade in Great Britain from 1 September 2021 (in Northern Ireland, this will happen in early 2022). They will also require the higher-octane 97+ 'Super' grades to remain E5 to provide protection for owners of older vehicles. This product will be designated as the 'Protection' grade. The change in fuel applies to petrol only. Diesel fuel will not be changing. Petrol pumps now show new labels designating the grade, the maximum ethanol content and an advisory cautionary notice. Other information regarding the introduction of E10 petrol may also be provided by fuel retailers such as the 'Know your Fuel' sticker. The Federation recommends that all vehicles produced before 2000 and some vehicles from the early 2000s that are considered non-compatible with E10 - should use the Super E5 Protection grade where the Ethanol content is limited to a maximum of 5%.
Some historic vehicles use materials in the fuel systems that are damaged by ethanol. These include some cork, shellac, epoxy resins, nylon, polyurethane and glass-fibre reinforced polyesters. In later cars these have largely been replaced with paper gaskets, Teflon, polyethylene and polypropylene which are all unaffected by ethanol. Very old leather gaskets and seals are also resistant to ethanol.
As the ethanol molecule is smaller and more polar than conventional petrol components, there is a lower energy barrier for ethanol to diffuse into elastomer materials. When exposed to petrol/ethanol blends these materials will swell and soften, resulting in a weakening of the elastomer structure. On drying out they can shrink and crack resulting in fuel leaks.
If your fuel system has old hoses or any degradation of components, then ethanol may appear to advance these problems very quickly. You may experience leaks or fuel 'sweating' from fuel lines. Some fuel tank repair coatings have been found to breakdown and clog fuel systems, although there are plenty of ethanol resistant products on the market.
Ethanol contains approximately 35% oxygen by weight and will therefore result in fuel mixture enleanment when blended into petrol. Petrol containing 10% ethanol for example, would result in a mixture-leaning effect equivalent to approximately 2.6%, which may be felt as a power loss, driveability issues (hesitations, flat spots, stalling), but also could contribute to slightly hotter running. Adjusting mixture strength (enrichment) to counter this problem is advised to maintain performance, driveability and protect the engine from overheating and knock at high loads.
Ethanol has increased acidity, conductivity and inorganic chloride content when compared to conventional petrol which is typically pH neutral. Ethanol can cause corrosion and tarnishing of metal components under certain conditions. These characteristics are controlled in the ethanol used to blend E5 and E10 European and UK petrol by the ethanol fuel specification BS EN15376 in order to help limit corrosion.
Some aftermarket ethanol compatibility additives claim complete protection for operating historic and classic vehicles on E10 petrol. The FBHVC is not aware of, or has tested any additives that claim complete fuel system protection with respect to elastomer and gasket materials for use with E10 petrol. The FBHVC therefore recommends that elastomer and gasket materials are replaced with ethanol compatible materials before operation on E10 petrol.
However, corrosion inhibitor additives can be very effective in controlling ethanol derived corrosion and are recommended to be added to ethanol in the BS EN15376 standard. It is not clear if corrosion inhibitors are universally added to ethanol for E5 and E10 blending so as an additional precaution it is recommended that aftermarket corrosion inhibitor additives are added to E5 and E10 petrol.
These aftermarket ethanol corrosion inhibitor additives often called ethanol compatibility additives are usually combined with a metallic valve recession additive (VSR) and sometimes an octane booster and have been found to provide good protection against metal corrosion in historic and classic vehicle fuel systems.