Lotus Steering wheel Centre Badge
We have a limited stock of the genuine Lotus Steering wheel badge, the same as was in production in period and which remained in use for the purpose of aftermarket supply sales for authorised dealers until the late 1970’s. They are genuine, new, old stock which we have acquired. Various copies have been manufactured in recent years with the aid of modern printing and moulding techniques etc., but they spoilt due to lack of precision and sharpness in the crude casting and often also sub standard in the finishing by being hastily hand painted, often in the wrong shade of colours and sealed with a finish which soon proved to be inappropriate. If you are considering purchasing a badge which is claimed to be genuine, please contact us and we will tell you how to identify the copies, some are quite close to the originals, but none of the copy badges are quite accurate enough to pass as originals.
The original plastic Lotus badges began life as ultra-clear hard plastic mouldings, these were then laid up in groups with a precision masking cup system inserted into each badge prior to being professionally painted the correct British Standard (from the BS381C range) colours in four stages, following this they were masked again and chrome plated. The outer radial grooves and the ACBC monogram in-fills were then spark eroded from the inner face over the chromed surface to provide the contrasting speckled metallic appearance. The badges were then chrome plated once again before the final sealing process using a pale grey cellulose sealer. The badges were left to harden fully before being meticulously scrutinised prior to delivery to Lotus.
These badges were the ‘production Lotus Steering Wheel badges’ used where a horn-push badge assembly was not required. In production they were fitted, but not limited to, Lotus Elite, Lotus Seven and Super 7 etc and of course featured on the Lotus racing cars during a similar period. The very first Lotus badges of this kind were produced manually and possibly as early as 1954, certainly the prototype Lotus XI had such a badge fitted to its steering wheel in 1955. This badge was manually spun out of aluminium and had a stencil painted Lotus logo applied to the centre, allowing the bright aluminium underneath the logo paint to highlight the Lotus text and the monogram. The badge was then sealed with a clear plastic coating. We have only encountered two of these early Lotus Steering wheel badges in the 30 years that we have been in business. This type of Lotus Steering wheel badge was essentially the prototype for what was to become an all plastic production badge as found on the production Series 1 Lotus Elite and Super sevens which continued well into the 1960’s for use in the Lotus 23, Lotus 33 and 49 racing cars to name a few.
Price for the genuine NOS production badge is currently £125+VAT – In stock.