The Lotus Elan was the company's first road car and featured a steel backbone chassis and a fibreglass body, which would influence Lotus design philosophy for the next three decades.

Lauded with critical acclaim throughout its production and beyond, it is regarded as one of the finest driver's cars ever built.

The car underwent a series of evolutions culminating in the Sprint in 1970.

Considered to be the pinnacle of the Elan series, this 1971 example comes from ~5 years with our vendor, it has twin 40DCOE Webers, with the ‘big valve’ engine fitted and verified as one of the 1,353 genuine factory-built Elan Sprints by a Lotus archivist.

Finished in Gold Leaf colours in homage to the Lotus 49 race cars, this car was exported to France in 1984, where it was well maintained and enjoyed for three decades until it was repatriated with its original registration in 2016.

While in France, it was the subject of a magazine article, but the owner wisely chose not to convert it to LHD.

Needl...