SPIRIT OF SPEED
ONE-OFF ELFIN
The classic car world is full of lists: the first this, the fastest that; the oldest, the most expensive, and the grammatically challenged – the most unique…
Many claims do not stand scrutiny. But let us suggest to you that this featured coupe has a history that is possibly unprecedented: a unique sports car that was commissioned by a man from a f ledgling racecar constructor; who oversaw the design and provided the specification and, almost six decades later, is still its proud owner.
This Elfin GTS Coupe was commissioned by George
Spanos who, in 1960 was a young lecturer in Fine Art at Melbourne University’s Secondary Teachers’ College. Only one year earlier, a new sports and racing car company had been founded in South Australia by a tenacious and talented young man by the name of Garrie Cooper.
The paths of these two men were soon to cross and create histor y.
Cooper of Adelaide was a motoring enthusiast from his earliest days and a racer as soon as he could drive. His father was a skilled body builder and painter who owned and
“SEVERAL ENTHUSIASTIC FRIENDS TOOK THE BAIT AND, BEFORE HE KNEW IT, COOPER HAD A RACING CAR COMPANY”
ran Cooper Motor Bodies, which built bus and truck bodies and converted sedans into wagons and utilities to special commission. It was within its walls that young Garrie cobbled together rudimentary bodies for – and tinkered with the mechanicals of – a series of racing specials that he modified and campaigned with his mates.
When a friend from the Austin 7 Club of South Australia asked Garrie to build a streamlined body for a Ford 10-based special he owned, Garrie suggested that he could make a better looking version of the Lotus 11, which he had seen in the f lesh at local race meetings. A one-off hand-built aluminium body would be expensive. But, not wanting to let the opportunity pass him by, Garrie murmured that if his other club chums would also like a body – or a complete car – then the price would be a little more reasonable.
Several enthusiastic friends took the bait and before he knew it Garrie Cooper had a racing car company.
He chose the name Elfin – a small and spritely mythical creature – for practical and obvious reasons: Cooper Cars had beaten him to the punch and was already up and running and winning Grand Prix World Championships with fellow Aussie Jack Brabham behind the wheel.
Elfin Sports Cars’ first model was the Streamliner of 1959
– an initial series of six were built for five mates and one
for Garrie to race, of course. Nearly two dozen would be built over a four-year period. It’s visual connection to the Frank Costin-designed Lotus 11 is immediately obvious and it proved to be a popular choice for privateer racers to run in sports car events across Australia, including the 1961 Australian Grand Prix at Mallala in South Australia.
Built on a multi-tubular spaceframe, the Streamliner typically featured independent front suspension with unequal length wishbones, Armstrong coil springs and an anti-roll bar, with a live axle at the back (although independent rear suspension was optionally available); drum brakes; rack and pinion steering; and 13-inch drilled disc wheels. It was available in kit form or fully constructed at the Elfin Works.
Pinning down the specification of an Elfin Streamliner – or any Elfin model – is problematic because various engines, gearboxes, suspension layouts and more were used. Various parts were often supplied by the commissioning buyer and sometimes these were changed or updated at a later date.
No two cars were the same. But there is one Streamliner that is completely unlike any other.
Victorian racers Peter Manton and George Spanos – having witnessed the speed of the Streamliner first-hand at the Phillip Island Trophy Race in December 1959 with Garrie Cooper behind the wheel of the Ford E93A-powered prototype – decided to commission their own cars.
However, while Manton ordered a conventional