A short history of the Lotus badge

Like so many things to do with Lotus there is a lot of misinformation and confusion about the badge -- some of it even started by Colin Chapman himself. These web pages are intended to dispell some of the myths.

First the monogram. The letters are A C B C, the initials of Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman. Chapman himself tried to persuade his early partners that the initials stood for "Allen Brothers and Colin Chapman", but the monogram is visible in photographs of the Mark Two taken before the Allen Brothers had met Chapman.

There have been two variations on the traditional yellow and green colours, the earlier badges (up to 1983) are paler shades than has been used from 1988 to the present. Black badges are not rare. They were fitted to several years of production of Elans & Europas and to all Elites, Eclats, Esprits and Excels until 1983.

The lettering of the word "LOTUS" has had two major phases, from 1953 to 1984 it is always a sans-serif style, and from 1984 it always has serifs. This is the easiest feature to pick out when Ebay vendors claim that their modern badges are for '60s and '70s cars.
Note that on the sans-serif badges the vertical of the monogram does not line up with the vertical of the T in LOTUS. All Lotus badges were like this until the 1984 design, and if mounted correctly the T is slightly out of vertical.

Click each badge for a larger picture and more details.

	1953-1963	The original design, this example is from the very first batch made
	1963-1968 and 1970-1974	Classic green and yellow
	1968-1970 and 1974-1983	The Jim Clark memorial black and silver
	1978-1979 and 1983-1984	For the limited edition JPS Esprit S2,and the Colin Chapman memorial black & gold
	1984-1986	The loss of the ACBC monogram caused much protest
	1986-1988	Immediately after the G.M. takeover the monogram was restored
	1988-present	The modern design, introduced while General Motors owned Lotus
	1999	The modern design, but in black and gold for special edition Elise "JPS" model.

 

This page was last updated 2006 May 19