This Mk4 Elan is an April 1969 car first owned by D Hall Esq of Newcastle upon Tyne and who sold it to J Dobbins Esq of Consett in November 1977and it came into the Twirp collection in 2012 so we are the third owner.
At some point it was fitted with a Spyder chassis, it has had a number of accidents over the years and at some time one of the drive doughnuts broke causing the half shaft to flail and bash a hole in the body.
Ratty bought the car in the knowledge that it was in rough condition and put it in the care of Keith Owen of Ankerbold Garage at Chesterfield.
The initial strip-down assessment showed that the car was about as bad as it could be so the chassis was sent to Spyder for re-jigging and up-dating and new suspension, brake and steering parts were purchased.
The body, as well as being bashed about has had several coats of paint, the reinforcing bars in the foot wells were completely rusted-through and it was clear that a quick re-spray just wasn’t on the cards so Keith embarked on a complete body restoration.
The engine condition was poor and the gearbox was ropey so the engine has been rebuilt (it already has a big valve head so it should give SE performance) a new differential was acquired and fortunately Paul Matty found a complete set of gears and built-up a gearbox for us.
New carpets and seats have been ordered and at the time of writing (January 2015) the car is being assembled and after a long period of meticulous work It should be just about as good as any other in existence.
We have chosen Lotus dark green for the main body colour with Lotus gold bumpers and it will have gold Minilite wheels so it should look the business!
It is costing a great deal more than originally anticipated but fortunately the price of Elans has increased significantly over the last year so it may end-up being a decent purchase.