The Lotus 15 is a Aluminium non-stressed from Lotus, built from 1958 to 1960, at the height of the post-war boom. Under the bonnet: Coventry Climax FPF. Colin Chapman drew it.
Under the skin
Power comes from Coventry Climax FPF. It weighs 992 -. It shifts through a Lotus "Queer Box" 5sp. / BMC B-Series 4sp. / ZF 5sp.. The layout matters: a front engine drives the rear wheels, the classic proportion — long bonnet, cabin set back — that most people picture when they picture a sports saloon or a grand tourer. The wheelbase is 88 in. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
In context
Its family tree is legible: it took over from the Lotus Mk.X; its successor was the Lotus 19. Its contemporaries in the catalogue — the Dodge Challenger, the Fiat 500, the Nissan Skyline — show what else the money bought that year. Nearby in the Lotus catalogue sit the Lotus 100T and the Lotus 101.
What it costs now
MotorJury scores cars on the United States complaint and recall record, and the Lotus 15 has none: too old, too rare, or never sold there. Its value today is a collector's question, decided by provenance and condition rather than by a class average.