IT was John Cooper who convinced us all of the advantages to be gained from the midengined layout for sports and racing cars. Though many other enterprising engineers, had tried different engine locations-including this one-he was the man who launched the current design trend. But for our own personal experiences of the tremendous adhesion 'and superb handling that can be found in a car which has its power unit between the driver and the rear wheels, we owe a debt of gratitude to Ford for creating the GT40. Among the disadvantages of the GT40, though, is its total lack of luggage space, and this was put right in the Rover/Alvis BS which showed that a mid-engined sports car could have space as well as performance and roadholding.
Now GKN Ltd. have endorsed our belief in this formula for the sports car of the future by engineering an alliance between, an engine in search of a car--the 3 1/2 -litre Rover V-8--and a car in search of an engine--the Lotus Europa. The result is a sports two-seater in which great refinement as well as performance have been added to the staggering cling-to-the-road capabilities common -to the breed, though there still isn't much luggage space and visibility is dangerously, poor in some situations.
While high-speed hot-rods have just as many nuts and bolts as ordinary cars, even more maybe, most people will wonder why GKN should have embarked on such a venture. Briefly, the answer is that nuts and bolts form only a small part of the GKN empire which a substantial slice of the British motor components industry and includes such companies as Hardy Spiren and Vandervell: for further details read Philip Turner's article on the subject in this issue. The function of the GKN-Europa is partly to draw attention to this fact and partly to act as a mobile test-bed for automotive parts. There are absolutely no plans to make even one more car, so don't bother writing any letters even if you happen to have saved up the £5,000 or so which GKN reckon the project has cost them. GKN, incidentally, provided the necessary special parts while Lotus did the design work and built the car which from now on will be looked after by ex-Vanwall racing mechanics at Vandervall.
Most visitors to the Racing Car Show at which the GKN-Europa was on display will already have noticed for themselves one of the most important characteristics of the car: its excellent finish and trim-most unusual for a one-off. Actually based on the racing 47 rather than the standard production Europe it has extra-thick specially moulded glass fibre body panels which have a good surface finish and are painted in an attractive dark metalescent blue with contrasting fine lines to pick out the waist. In addition to some subtle changes of shape, there are many detail differences from standard separate faired-in sidelights. over-riders for the rear bumpers, different door handles and so on. Inside all is leather, carpet and walnut, with a full set of instruments, fresh air vents, and neat rocker switches for the various electrical services which include window lifts. More carpet lines the front boot (big enough for a small suitcase) and covers the spare wheel in the compartment behind the very inaccessible engine.
The rear forks of the Lotus backbone chassis have been cut off and replaced by a cross-member to which is attached a tubular frame from which hang the engine and the ZF five-speed gearbox. The extra length of the V-8 and ZF box compared to the normal twin-cam assembly increases the wheelbase by 2 1/2 in.
Cramming 3 1/2 litres of Rover engine under the low rear deck of the 47 involved some height problems which had to be cured by relocating the oil pump in the front timing case and fitting a shallower, cast alloy sump. Except for the use of a special exhaust system, the engine is otherwise completely standard and as tried had the normal hydraulic valve lifters which limit maximum revs to about 5,500 r.p.m. though 6,000 r.p.m. can be used occasionally. The standard power output of 184 (gross) b.h.p. thus compares with the 121 b.h.p. of the hottest Renault unit available for the Europe. A weight increase of around 5 cwt. goes some way to offset the greater power. Solid valve lifters, Weber carburetters and a wilder camshaft are to be fitted soon to increase power and raise the maximum engine speed to 7,000 r.p.m.
Height problems also limit flywheel and hence clutch size (to 7in. diameter) so that a special twin-plate unit had to be made up to take the torque. Despite such modifications to transmission and engine, ground clearance is a minimal 3in.
"Play down the driving side." the man said, but when you give a dream car to an enthusiast for half-a-day's burn it's a bit hard to expect him not to enthuse. Enthuse, therefore, I shall, without further apology. The second thing I noticed when I began to drive the car for myself was the way it went round corners. With direct, precise steering near-neutral and supremely nimble handling characteristics, there is seldom any conscious turning of the wheel to change direction: you just think your way round a corner. On twisty roads and faster ones with sweeping bends, you can very often dispense entirely with the usual brake-and-change-down ritual, the setting-up before a corner and the prepare-for-correction when you're in it; instead you can swoop smoothly round a bend, almost without slowing down at speeds which generally feel much higher (and frequently are) than could be maintained in the best conventional sports cars.
I was certainly not brave enough to reach its limit of adhesion in the dry and on public roads, though I was often conscious of powerful g-forces dragging my body sideways. At times the torquey V-8 almost seemed capable of hanging the tail out on slower corners despite the rearward weight bias and the wide-section Goodyear radials. Sometimes, too, the car felt a little unbalanced if braking was maintained a little too far into the beginning of a corner, but GKN man David Sankey who has driven it very quickly at Silverstone (and confesses to having spun it) says that, the car is quite catchable if you overdo things or get it all wrong.
All this, as said a little while ago, was the second thing I observed about the GKN-Europa; the first thing was the clutch whose action initially proved a bit of a problem for a moderately clumsy southpaw like me (I sometimes think I was only half wired up for left-hand operation). With all the bite concentrated in a millimetre or so of movement right at the top of the, long travel, engagement from rest was sometimes a trifle fraught, especially at angled T-junctions on hills where the stress situation was compounded by my inability to see through the Europa's thick rear quarters. Equally, I found downward changes of the ZF box notchy and obstructive until I discovered that the pedal had to be pressed right to the floor for complete release. It made me realise what some of the twin and multiplate clutches of the more difficult vintage cars and historic racers must have been like, and how mollycoddled we are nowadays by modern units with their progressive action. After resolving these difficulties I liked the change much better. It has a back-and-forth zig-zag patten and an interlock to prevent accidental over-revving which means that you have to change up and down in sequence without skipping a gear: an additional quirk of the design is the need to select second before you can start off in the non-synchro first.
Another surprise--a pleasant one this time--was the way in which engine noise had been kept down, for inherently smooth or not, the Rover V-8 needs its share of insulation and properly devised mountings if it is to be acceptable, as we have found out from some of the more amateurish conversions we have tried recently. But don't believe any of that non-sense about "eight cylinders hammering away just behind the driver's ears", because the engine never made more than a pleasant growl when revving hard through the gears and when cruising at any speed above 60 m.p.h. was virtually inaudible.
As for performance, GKN claim that it is significantly quicker than an E-type up to about 110 m.p.h. when the Rover engine in its present form begins to get a little lazy. Using only 5.000 r.p.m. the maximum indicated speeds in the gears were 45 m.p.h., 67 m.p.h., 87 m.p.h. and 107 m.p.h.--I had no opportunity to reach the equivalent 125 m.p.h. in fifth, still less the 140 m.p.h. attainable at 6.000 r.p.m. The engine pulled happily from 1,000 r.p.m. but gave of its best from about 2,500 r.p.m. onwards. Bottom is a low gear in which one very quickly runs out of revs, and one can see why GKN hope their engine modifications will attain 7,000 r.p.m.
With that Lotus air-dodging shape you'd expect wind noise to be low and it was, except for some sealing hiss at the tops of the windows at high speed. There was no corresponding high frequency hiss from the tyres, but instead much rumbling on rough surfaces, thumps on small irregularities like cat's eyes and loud crashes when meeting deeper potholes. The risk of bottoming the car on such hazards is the one thing which might spoil the car for touring abroad, for although the ride was very firm, it mercifully lacked the kidney pounding harshness so often a feature of near-racers. It was just another reason why I was reluctant to get out of the car. C.A.C.
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