Talk:Lotus Mark VI

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From Lotus Seven:

"The British tax system of the time (Purchase Tax) meant the car could be supplied as a kit (known as "completely knocked down" or CKD) without attracting the tax surcharge that would apply if sold in assembled form. Tax rules specified assembly instructions could not be included, but in a typical Chapman-inspired piece of lateral thinking, there was no rule covering the inclusion of disassembly instructions. Hence all the enthusiast had to do was to follow these in reverse."

Did this apply to the 6? Include it? Trekphiler 14:39, 29 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

Good point:

In his book "The Lotus and Caterham Sevens", Lotus historian Jeremy Coulter was discussing the MK.6 when he stated "It was an established principle that people who wanted a car primarily for sporting purposes could build a 'one-off' for themselves by accumulating the component parts and in doing so they would not attract the purchase tax. At 25% of the purchase price this was a very important consideration..."

At about this same time several other kit-car manufacturers sprang into being (Buckler, Rochdale, Ashley, and Falcon). I believe the avoidance of the purchase tax was an important aspect of their popularity..

I vote to include it. Tom Bartlett 02:30, 29 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

The total number of Lotus 6 or mark Six or Mk VI produced was somewhere between 110 and 130. Many of these went abroad and there are a few in the US and Japan in particular. There are quite a few on the road in the UK, although there are also some rather good replicas about which the unscrupulous have tried to pass off as the real mccoy.

The Historic Lotus Register have production data on file and guard the details of chassis numbers and other identifying data which means that it is more difficult to pass replicas off as original vehicles.

The Six did pretty well on the track and a few relatively well known drivers of the time really rated this lightweight and 'chuckable' little car, (Colin Chapman not least of these).

The Coventry-Climax engine was a particularly desired engine option, although the running gear didn't always keep up with power this engine generated. If you tried to use the period Ford rear axle, you were probably going to get through a few replacement diffs.

In 1957, the s1 Seven was already selling, a quantity of mark 6 spaceframes were found in storage, perhaps a dozen or more. Rather than waste these, a number of cars were made up on these frames but wearing the 7 nosecone and rear wheel housings. They looked rather more like the 7 than the 6 in general appearance. They were referred to as the 'six and a half'.

This particular 'six and a half' was restored by Gareth Williams of Porthcawl in South Wales and has been owned by him for over 30 yrs. [1]. 81.78.65.155 (talk) 11:03, 20 November 2007 (UTC) 81.78.65.155 (talk) 11:27, 20 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

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