[petrolhead611]

Hi the original Europa had the Renault 16 engine and transmission, all aluminium and highly tuneable a la Alpines.It was the announcement of this drivetrain that decided Chapman to design a sportscar around it. They then progressed to the Lotus-Ford twin cam engine using the Austin Maxi transmission. Both the !6 and the Maxi were available with automatic transaxles, and you may find one lingering in a or French or UK wreckers yard.
There is a firm in the UK incidentally that makes a kit version of the Europa, using I believe, modern European GM running gear.

Side impact was taken care of to some extent by the overlap of the door with the A pillar in Chapman designs. Of course we didnt have huge barges of cars, and idiotically sized 4x4's and pickups to deal with in the UK back when the Elan, Europa,Elite, Elan+2 were current. There were plenty of other contemporary sportscars available in the UK which were just as or even more unforgiving in a crash- I had a Berkeley B105 for example which was just a fast moving coffin, and then I had a Mini-Marcos which was an even faster moving coffin.