LEC 70th Birthday Sign

[lotusflasherman]

Just to confirm, I am the custodian of our Lotus supplied plastic sign from the Hethel 70th Birthday Celebration - probably because transporting it involved putting it into the passenger footwell, bending it around behind the seats and down into the drivers footwell and climbing over it to get into the car... was a bit intrusive into the right calf when on the throttle and I had the shortest journey and am fairly well known for not fussing about marks and scratches that appear on my daily drive Elans.

lec 70 gaz.jpg

lec 70.jpg

It is 2.9 m long, 25 cm high, 5.3 mm thick so not very easy to transport, particularly in an M100... and it did require a bit of 'reverse bending' to straighten it again once it was at home. Not sure how many times that can be done before the plastic work-hardens and breaks.

Purpose of this post is to consult the main players in LEC - Pinky, Geoff, Clemo, Rambo et al. (who t'f' is Al? )

I haven't gone to France so will be at CC but yet to decide which Lotus I will use. I can probably bend it again to bring to CC if I use the Evora without it going into the pedal area and digging into my calf... but then we'll have the fun of straightening it out again... and then who will take it away? - what length does the gazebo fold down to ?

My thoughts are "Shall I cut it to make it transportable?" .... the dilemma is that whilst I am loathe to cut it into sections and lose its Hethel authenticity, I cannot see it being used often when it is so difficult to transport.

The holes for the cable ties are symmetrical from each end at 10cm and 100cm, leaving 90cm between the centre two - which means the LEC text is well off-centre of the sign and towards being centred between the badge and birthday emblem but isn't quite !

The LEC text is 104cm so my proposal is to cut it to make a centre section 120cm wide with text centred, and 'hinge' the other sections with white cable ties so we have a folding sign 1.2 m wide that will fit in the boot of an M100, or almost anything else.

Then it wouldn't need to be bent and would probably last longer than most of us... I could also remove a bit of a blank section to get the text closer to being central ... off-centre text annoys a pedantic old engineer like me ..

What do people think? Comments please ....

[GeoffSmith]

[HJ2]

[Simon_P]

Just a thought - would it roll up. Maybe around something like a bucket or a cable drum?

[lotusflasherman]

Just a thought - would it roll up. Maybe around something like a bucket or a cable drum?

Yes, I could probably find a 33kV cable drum it would bend round but those are mor

( did not realise my tablet posted this while I was still typing it. )

[alan e]

And then we can use it as a big table for the tea's and coffee's at CC.

[lotusflasherman]

Just a thought - would it roll up. Maybe around something like a bucket or a cable drum?

Yes, I could probably find a 33kV cable drum it would bend round but those are more than 8ft diameter so not sure how I'd transport that ...

Seriously though ... it's virtually 3m long and of a thickness and stiffness that you cannot get close to one end touching the other in a circle. A horseshoe shape inside the Elan exceeded it's bending radius leaving two curves that needed reverse bending to straighten it.

[Simon_P]

Oh I see it's hard plastic rather than a banner.

As you said, cut it. Although I'd question its usefulness if it isn't really easy to store and transport

[Fredjohn]

So who has the vinyl LEC banner? I brought it to Hethel, but someone else took it away. Dave, was that you? I seem to remember you putting it in your boot at our hotel.

[dapinky]

John,

I can't remember having it - but I'll have a good look around the house - everything is all over the place at the moment, so it could be anywhere.....

[GeoffSmith]

Not guilty.