BUILDING MEMORIES WITH A KIT
I really enjoyed your article on the golden era of British sports cars (C&SC, May), because it brought back great memories of my time as a young, car-mad Australian dentist living in London in the early 1970s.
Of the many cars I owned at the time, the 1970 Lotus Elan S4 SE was my favourite. Nothing before or since has been able to replicate the raw mechanical sensitivity and dynamics of Colin Chapman’s masterpiece. I bought it in component form, saving quite a bit on Purchase Tax, so it was delivered as a fully fitted body and interior, requiring an engine and gearbox, the drivetrain, and suspension assembly and fitting. It was advertised as an easy weekend activity, but the reality was far different: several weeks of frustrating trial and error finally resulted in a completed car.
The single A4 sheet of simple instructions that came with the car included steps such as ‘fit diff and rear suspension.’ What it did not tell you was that there were about 10 ways that the rear suspension and diff could almost fit, but only one way that it would fit perfectly. So every combination of ways had to be tried before the correct one was hit upon. This intimate knowledge of the car’s mechanicals was helpful, because every few months you would have to grab your spanners and tighten up all the bits that had come loose.
My Elan had the original rubberdoughnut rear driveshafts, which required considerable concentration and skill when applying the power – an incompetent driver would soon end up with a very sore neck. I also owned a Lotus Elan +2 and a Sunbeam Tiger 260 – both nice cars, but not in the same league as the ‘baby’ Elan. My flatmate had a Jaguar E-type, which I sometimes drove, but it felt like a truck after the Lotus.
Greg Turek
Sydney, Australia