Lithe Lotus worth a skip across the pond for enthusiast
Keith Marshall loved his 1969 Elan so much he couldn’t leave it behind when he moved to North America
Growing up in the U.K., Keith Marshall was a Lotus fan from the very beginning. “I followed Lotus (Formula One) in the late ’50s and early ’60s,” he says, and his favourite driver of all was Jim Clark. Lotus was happily racking up F1 championships at the time and would sell you a road-going sports car if you asked politely and handed over some cash. Marshall had originally fallen for the soft curves of the Lotus Elite, but those were out of production when he “was old enough and had enough money to buy one.” So he “settled” for a Series 2 Lotus Elan.
The term “race-bred” is overused to the point of devaluation, but it really does mean something here. See, Lotus boss Colin Chapman revolutionized the way Formula One cars were built after his simplified, lightweight racers began racking up championship wins. His ethos became famous: “Simplify and add lightness.” With less weight than the competition, his race cars could corner better, accelerate faster and conserve tires and fuel longer.
While big V8 and V12 engines make headline-worthy power, they weigh too much for a lightweight chassis, so a 1,558-cc DOHC I4 was used. The Elan engine was far from the tractor-like implements found in MGs and Triumphs, and made a heady 120 horsepower.
The twin-cam’s 120 hp doesn’t sound like much, until you realize that, at 726 kilograms, this car weighs about 363 kg less than a Mazda Miata.
That light weight was no accident. The Elan is built around a steel backbone chassis; it’s roughly shaped like an “X” with wider openings for the engine up front and independent rear suspension out back. Over this is a lightweight fibreglass body.
Chapman was eager to distance himself from the many shoddy fibreglass kit cars of the time and purposely used smooth, subtle curves in the body shape so onlookers would assume it was metal. Because of its dainty curb weight and fully independent suspension, the Elan drives like nothing else before or since.
This is part of the reason Marshall found the Elan so appealing. He loved his Series 2, but in 1969 he decided to sell his used Elan and buy a brand-new replacement. Interestingly, you could be exempt from the hefty purchase tax if you bought a car as a kit instead of a fully assembled model. Marshall paid £1,500 for his brand-new 1969 Lotus Elan S4 SE as a kit instead of the £2,000 he’d have to pay for a completed car.
It may have been sold as a kit but it wasn’t fully disassembled. The body was already together and painted, and the engine and transmission were already together. Marshall was left with the task of assembling the front and rear suspension, mating the body to the frame and installing the drivetrain. He and some friends came over and built the car over the course of a weekend.
Once fully built and operational, Marshall found the Elan to be a tantalizing drug of a car. He brought it over with him when he moved from England to Detroit in the early 1970s, and drove it among the hulking American cars of the period. He road-tripped the little Elan from Detroit to Texas and back — twice. He just kept driving the Lotus and brought it up to Canada when he moved.
“Across a country lane,” he says, “nothing could touch it.” It could handily show tail lights to much more expensive cars like Ferraris and E-Types if the road got twisty.
After 40 years of solid use, the Elan was in need of some love. Marshall tore the car down to the frame and treated it to a full restoration. He kept the factory Bahama Yellow colour and resisted the urge to hot rod it beyond a set of uprated camshafts.
The result of all his hard work is a car that simply dances around corners. The amount of thrust on hand is legitimately impressive. It won’t catch a 454 Corvette on a straight but when the road curves, it can show tail lights to just about anything.
It’s easy to see why this little yellow sports car captured Keith’s attention from day one. There’s truly nothing else like it.