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Banks Service Station
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Banks Service Station
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The following article featured in the Japanese publication "Auto Jumble Vol.5" and is reproduced by kind permission. All text and images © Auto Jumble. All rights reserved Page 1
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Page 8 | English translation |
How About an Air Conditioned New Car, The New Lotus 47?Europa Engineering would like to thank Inoue Autos for supplying the magazine and this creative translation!A Lotus small midship sports car, popular among car lover's, 30 to 40 years old is the Lotus 46, known as the Europa. The Lotus 47 was born in l966 as a competition model. But now, we are able to ride this 47 in better performance than a new car This is a modern interpreted 47 replica that has surpassed the Lotus 47. The temperature on that day was 36 degrees Celsius at noon. The weather was clear with a few clouds here and there. A very humid day it was. The place was Hakone town park. At the drive in, amongst the vans and sedans driven by the families enjoying their summer holiday, was the low profile Gold Leaf car. It came all the way from Lancaster England and arrived in Japan just yesterday. This car is the second car which Mr. Ota introduced in our magazine as ' A Replica Lotus 47 which can be purchased brand new.' It just arrived at the Lotus Specialist Shop Inoue Auto. It's name is ino47. The number 47 implies that it is a replica of the Lotus 47 (the racing version of the Europa). But this ino47 seems too good to be called a replica. It might be better than the Lotus 47 at the time it was made. In fact it is not wise to compare this car with a car 30 years old. Maybe we should look at this car as a modern car, made from modern parts. You would understand the reason for this after reading the introduction on the engine character, chassis frame structure later on in this article. But most of all this ino47 has air-conditioning. This air conditioning which is an option for the ino47, is made by Clayton. It is fitted near the front nose duct, right next to the radiator. It is Very compact. (The option price is 350,000 yen) I got on the ino47 to drive in the winding road of Hakone. I turned on the ignition key at the centre console and pressed on the starter button. After clanking about 3 times, the engine started with a big noise. I put in the first gear and started with my side window closed in this hot weather. The people at the drive-in look at me as if saying 'in this hot weather it must be hot. driving such a car'. Well. I am not hot. I drove the Hakone town park for about half an hour, let me tell you my impression. First of all the transmission. It loads the Renault new type 5 speed (type NG3, final gear ratio 3.77:1). This transmission has a newly designed shift linkage. It has a very short shift stroke (from N to each gear there is probably about 2-3cm), so until you are used to it, it is very difficult to tell whether you are in 4th speed or in neutral. It is especially nerve wracking when shifting down. However the shift feel is very hard and very proper, so when you are used to it, it will probably be good. The engine. This is familiar to our readers. It is the 2000cc. twin cam by Vauxhall. It has been rebuilt by Banks Service Station which built the ino47. Basically it is still the same, but they have used the Bosch injector to the Luminition 4 Slot body, and the max. 200 ps is controlled by the MBE computer system . As it was still at the time of driving in the car, I was only allowed up to 4500rpm. But even from around 2000rpm, when pressing on the accelerator, it accelerates full of torque. This condition did not change much when the air condition was turned on! it made me feel the high standard of a modern engine. Unless you over drive the car under the hot sun, the water gauge always pointed to 90 degrees. This surprised me. One thing that disappointed me was that the idling was very unstable. When shifting down to 2nd gear and stopping, the engine usually stalled and always had to do heel & toe. This engine has 3.77:1 final ratio. in 3rd gear at 4500 rpm the speedometer points to about 110 km/h The braking system has a spec of, the front 248mm diameter ventilated disc and a single pod sliding caliper, the rear has a solid disc with single pod sliding caliper, a popular design. But with the light weight body and the fairly good support, plus the pedal layout which suggested heel and toe, the winding run had a very good impression. The wheel tyre, front 15*6JJ wheel by performance and 185 55 R15 81V Korean made tyre (Hankook), the rear had the same wheel. and the tyre 195 50 R15 82V. Thinking of the chassis and the engine power it seemed like the best decision. However, the reason being in the tyre or in the alignment, I am not too sure but the grip felt a little shallow, and when going into a corner the front handling and the grip felt shallow. Also, because the Koni made body height and the damper, suspension alignment had not been properly looked into, I felt a little nervous with its straight line ability and a strong oversteer was obvious. Especially obvious when running a mid speed long corner where the exit was turned in, beyond apex in acceleration mode. There was a strong reverse steer when turning off the accelerator. Of course thinking of the situation that we had to drive it straight after it's arrival in Japan from England, this situation was understandable. Inoue Auto mentioned that before it reaches the owner the weak points will be looked into. But for myself it was the one chance I had in driving this car, the Banks original chassis frame the rack and pinion steering being very strong, the other parts all had a potential. I felt that I would have liked to see their potential shown fully on each compartment.
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