Ultra-rare racing legend Lotus Elan, one of just 100 ever made, unearthed in US man's basement after decades

An American collector has been ‘secretly’ hiding a rare Lotus Elan for a while.

The car is in decent shape, but it’s still months away from being fully restored.

Apparently, we’re looking at a ‘long-term project’ – and for once, the word ‘long’ is used correctly because the car has been sitting here for a while.

But it’s still potentially worth a fortune.

The reason why almost all Lotus cars have names beginning with ‘E’

One of the most recognizable traits of Lotus cars is that nearly all models feature a name beginning with the letter E.

This was an accident that turned into a signature trait, a feature that defines the brand’s identity.

Initially, Lotus founder Colin Chapman simply named his cars in chronological order using Roman numerals.

Mark I, Mark II, and so on.

Then, once he got to Mark XI, he decided that ‘Eleven’ sounded better than ‘Mark XI.’

That naming strategy never changed, and then it was cemented even further with the arrival of the Lotus Elise.

Named after the granddaughter of the then-chairman of Lotus, Elise was the first modern Lotus with an E-name, but not the last.

It joined a long list, which also included the Exige, Europa, and indeed the Elan you see here.

Even now that Lotus rebranded as an almost EV-only brand, the tradition stuck: Emira, Eletre, Emeya, and so on.

A rare and forgotten sports car

The guys from Hagerty found this Lotus Elan 26R, one of only 100 in existence, belonging to a collector known as ‘Famous Frank’.

Frank became a collector almost by accident, and he runs a shop that specializes in NOS (New Old Stock) parts, which is how he often comes across rare and potentially precious cars.

But this is even rarer than rare.

It’s the 26R, a limited-edition iteration of a famous, but long-forgotten Lotus model called the Elan.

Unveiled in the 1960s – and then again in the 1980s – the Elan actually preceded the Elise, which is probably the reason why people forgot about it.

Because the Elise was so huge for the brand, it sort of dwarfed anything before it and – in part – after it.

But that’s what makes the Elan special.

Especially this one.

It’s believed that the British automaker only produced about 100 units of the 26R, and many were lost or destroyed through the years.

Introduced in 1964, the 26R was a factory-built race car with a reinforced chassis, magnesium components, and thinner fiberglass body panels to shed weight.

While the standard Lotus Elan weighed 1,400lbs (635kg), the Elan 26R was even lighter, tipping the scales at just 1,100lbs (498kg).

The car – described by Hagerty as a ‘long-term project’ – is not in bad shape, but it’s far from finished.

And it’s potentially worth a lot.

If fully restored, this car is easily worth six figures.