1969 Banks Europa 62
Built byBANKSA Europa Engineering interpretation of the Type 62 theme - not a Team Lotus car
Lotus built just two Type 62 sports prototypes in 1969. They were competition cars, developed in part as running test beds for the four-valve engine programme that became the Lotus 907. Neither is on this lawn.
What you are looking at is a Banks Europa 62, hand-built by Europa Engineering of Southport – the Lancashire specialist run by Richard Winter, which has been producing Type 47- and Type 62-inspired Europas since the early 1990s. Beneath the wide glassfibre shell sits a bespoke steel spaceframe with double wishbones at all four corners and a modern engine and transaxle. The car carries a 1969 Europa identity; its construction belongs to our own era, and it is the better for it.
The original. Lotus completed two Type 62s for the 1969 season. They were competition prototypes with a tubular spaceframe, wide glassfibre bodywork loosely recalling the Europa, and the 2-litre four-valve engine that would later be developed into the Lotus 907 unit used in the Elite, Eclat and Esprit. They were never sold to the public and never built in series.
This car. Europa Engineering – long known to Lotus owners simply as Banks, after the Banks Service Station at Southport where the business is based – began building Type 47-inspired Europas in 1992, adding the more track-focused 62S soon afterwards. Every car is specified individually, so no two are alike. This one is built for the road: a 2-litre Vauxhall sixteen-valve engine on individual throttle bodies, a five-speed Renault transaxle with close-ratio gears, adjustable coil-over suspension and around 176bhp in a car weighing roughly 831kg.
On the numbers. Published figures for Europa Engineering’s output vary considerably between sources, and totals quoted for road-registered 62S cars in particular should be treated as the builder’s and owner’s record rather than as an audited production figure. Club Lotus prefers to say only that the road-going 62S is rare, and that seeing one is unusual.
Why it matters
Recreations and interpretations are part of the Europa story, provided everyone is clear about which is which.