Approaching its 60th birthday: Lotus Type 14 Elite

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Pretty, isn't it? Still a vision of ageless beauty, it's hard to believe the Lotus Type 14 Elite is now approaching its 60th birthday. Technologically and stylistically apart from almost any of its peers, it looks like a product of the Swinging Sixties, not the drab mid-'50s.

History records that the shape was the work of Peter Kirwan-Taylor – not a stylist at all, but an accountant with an interest in cars. The great dilettante who arrived from nowhere, effortlessly produced – arguably – the prettiest car of all time and then disappeared into obscurity once more. Of course, reality is less romantic. The Elite was the result of long, hard teamwork by a close-knit group that included Kirwan-Taylor (who drew the original outline) Frank Costin, Chris Frayling, Ron Hickman and others. The car was drawn, re-drawn, chopped and changed, the complex glassfibre monocoque was engineered and re-engineered until eventually everyone was happy. That it looks so effortless, so timeless, is something of a miracle given its difficult early life.

If you want to know what makes the Elite so special, you should ask someone who really knows their stuff. Peter Stevens, of McLaren F1 and Lotus Elan M100 fame, obviously does, and he has attempted to explain just why the Elite looks so good in the latest issue of The Automobile, which you can buy here.

Photographs by Stefan Marjoram 

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