This is Hollie, so named because I have two of these and the other is probably to be painted deep green. Red and green are holiday colors connected to Holly with it’s red berries and green leaves.  

This is a rare vehicle, but widely known and sometimes admired. There is an enthusiastic world community of owners who enjoy this car.

It seems to me that Lotus Europa’s  offered for sale are too often in horrible shape and in need of an overhaul and cleanup. They were expensive cars when new and still, so many end up behind the garage or in a field or under a lien-to and left for decades to moulder into decay.

I’ve wondered why. I don’t think it’s a reflection on the car though. If it were a heap of junk, people wouldn’t bother keeping it where they can oversee it’s ruin. They’d sell it or send it to the crusher. Instead, they hang on to it. It does require some extra care. It’s fragile. It’s a bit of a process to enter and exit the car. Very comfortable once in, but it’s an extra ordinary effort to get there.

This one probably did not suffer serious neglect but didn’t get used much. The odometer says just over 38,000 miles which many people can manage in two or three years of ownership. It’s been kept up and then someone in Quebec did a paint job. The interior is in excellent shape.

My other one did not fare so well. It was loved by the buyer until he died a little more than twenty years later. From there, things get cloudy. Subsequent owners did not understand the marquee and maybe fell down on the job when it came to proper care. It sat outside for a very long time. One guy traded a horse for it and got it out of the field it was in to put it in his field. Another man and his dad could see it from the road and eventually cashed the owner out. They got it running then sold it to me. By then the wheel bearings, some universal joints, and dampers were seized, the brake master cylinder had been swapped out for one that was beyond wrong. Way beyond. It was a basket case. Suspension components were broken and rare parts were dissolved away by rusting.  Some parts were out of specification and others were ruined by decay. Bad seat frames, rusty chassis, dry trunnions, ruined windscreen, trashed interior, leaky gas tank, rusty heim joints, no paint, and numerous  serious problems. It should have been junked.

Instead, I took it on and fixed what needed fixed and replaced what needed replaced. Now it does not qualify as a basket case, but there is considerably more work ahead.

Maybe these cars survive the neglect because of their looks. Some say it’s an acquired taste, but I don’t. The form is inspired. Very beautiful.

Maybe they survive because of the legendary capabilities they have for road holding and pleasant driving experience.

I was drawn to it because of both. And it’s not a snooty car. Regular people drive these. I’ve not been drawn to the super cars. This one gets good fuel economy, hugs the road, and is comfortable to drive.

In any case, they don’t get fixed on their own and they don’t come back to life because someone spends a few weekends trying. The effort is substantial.  Costs money to.  Requires research, planning, and diligence.

Here’s why I’ve put thought into the question as to why people take a great vehicle and let it go to waste in their driveway.  They don’t just do it with cars. I’ve seen it with relationships. A beautiful couple gives up on each other. Or one or the other gives up. A great, even magical, home can be let go and ruined by the effects of time and neglect.

As I worked through the chassis renewal on Lottie,  I thought on this almost every day. Old cars like these hold up very well with ongoing care and proper maintenance. They can be driven many many miles and still look and perform well. Or they can be treated in other ways. Substandard maintenance and careless use and disuse, neglect over time allows nature to try to take back the car. Fluids thicken or leak out, corrosion takes hold, seals dry up, and where dissimilar metals sit in close proximity, they fuse.

Relationships follow a similar course in response to neglect. Something that was and could be beautiful is destroyed as a result. With relationships, the canker can extend beyond the failed union and into the souls of its former mates.

Relationships also hold up very well with heavy use when the masters of those relationships do the required maintenance without cutting corners or taking short cuts or using substandard parts and such.

These cars are nearly always salvagable. People are nearly always salvageable. After putting my chassis right, I   think that if the parallel holds true, then putting relationships or lives back to right may very well require serious sustained effort and expense. At least in terms of time. Bodies that have been allowed to fall into sad condition can be renewed  too. In every case, good intentions and gut feeling are not enough. For the car, I required a shop manual, trial and error, access to a community of people well familiar with the car and it’s needs, and tools. It is simple work, but demanding. I had to plumb a brake line system from scratch. That means I sourced new brake pipe and the correct connectors and then cut each line, straightened the pipe, shaped it for it’s application in the circuit, flared it and put it all together. It looks great. It works well. Human lives and human bodies are made of systems, much like cars are. Each system must work within specification ranges.

But I’m straying from the question. Why to people take something beautiful and fully functional then let it fall apart or rot not as a function of normal use but from neglect or misuse? Why would a man let a beautiful bride, a woman with a pretty soul and good character be neglected? Why would a woman badger and alienate a good man and a diligent husband until he can not tolerate the abuse? Why do people let great situations degrade into the ruin of neglect and even crass disregard?

Why?

It’s certainly more work to put it back together. Those who let things fail usually are not the ones who do the later patchwork.

I think I know the answers, or some of them. It’s not always intentional. Ignorance is a powerful immobilizer.

What I do know is that much that is wonderful is not esteemed commensurate with it’s intrinsic value. What one person sees as a waste of time and concern another values highly and works to acquire.

Compare this view of my second Europa to the one above. One isn’t necessarily better, it’s just been treated better.

Oh, and that slab in the foreground – that’s a door. I just recently renovated a bathroom. It had gone to a very sad state and required the same near total redo. This time it was my fault. Part of it was ignorance. No, all of it was. Ignorance in that I had a plumbing problem that I thought I’d addressed correctly, but also in that as it did its damage, I ignored it. That cost me! Now that’s the nicest room in the house though. Necessity drove that project.