In 1988, C&SC got in touch with Andrew Bradshaw, who had just purchased the remains of a Lotus Eleven. At the time, all he knew was that it had been fitted with a Maserati 150S engine – by then missing – and it had no chassis number, but was believed to be chassis 156. Brian Naylor, who raced a Maserati-engined Eleven, identified it as probably being his, but he had not seen the car.
Andrew put the chassis to one side, but over the ensuing 30-plus years he has done a huge amount of detailed research, while also racing and hillclimbing his Lotus Six, another Eleven and a 30. Come lockdown in 2020, he thought he had acquired enough information to build the car.
When Colin Chapman entered overseas races such as Sebring he would take over a new car that had already been bought by a customer, race it, then hand it over after the event. This car had been bought by Briggs Cunningham and entered for Sebring in 1956, to be driven by Chapman and American Len Bastrup. In practice it was heavily crashed and caught fire; it was too badly damaged to race so retired, and Cunningham took delivery of a crashed car with no engine. Engineer Alfred Momo strengthened the chassis and fitted a 1500cc engine from a Maserati 150S, and in this form Cunningham raced the Eleven before advertising it for sale in Road & Track in 1961.
It was bought by C William Allen, who raced it at Road America and crashed it heavily. The repaired car was then caught up in another fire, this time so hot that it melted some parts. Later, Gary Battinich from Indianapolis bought the remains from an unnamed vendor who told him he had bought the Lotus seven years earlier thinking that it was a ʻBirdcageʼ Maserati. The engine and transmission were still there, but they wanted another $2000 for the powertrain so he just bought the frame. During Battinichʼs ownership it was stripped and stored in a warehouse. In 1988 the Eleven came back to the UK, and Andrew bought it from Lotus specialist Mike Brotherwood.
Chassis 156 was one of the first 10 Lotus Elevens built. It is still fitted with a correct limited-slip differential (an Austin-Healey diff fitted with Borg-Warner limited-slip internals), which was on the car ordered by Cunningham, and it came with a red-painted rear body section from another of Cunninghamʼs cars. Andrew has now completed the restoration to the specification ordered by Cunningham from the factory – with a Climax rather than Maserat
