Recently, I was given a post card from my brother in law who owns an elan S4, he bought the post card during his travels in the UK, the photo postcard featured the late, great, world F1 Champion Jim Clark, the following words were printed on the post card “I drive my lotus elan for pleasure – Not because I have to. That statement truly sums up why many of us own and drive a Lotus Elan, simply because there are few sports cars that can give a driver more bang per buck than the Lotus Elan.
If you have been through the hard yards of restoration, you then become the proud elan owner/driver, you gain a special respect and intimate knowledge of why the elan is such an amazing sports car, there are no two words that truly sum it up, but for me, if I was given the choice between an E Type Jag, Big Healey, or Morgan lined up in a car yard, and I had the choice of just one car, it would have to be the elan.
Croucher Engineering, or elantrikbits Australia are well known world wide for producing the CVDS conversion that has been installed into countless lotus elan and elan plus 2 cars around the globe, in fact, where ever the lotus elan was exported in the past, it would be fair to say that you will find many would be fitted with our CVDS conversion.
But despite the popularity of the CVDS, there are still elan owners who for one reason or another are resisting the change and remain stoically faithful to the old rubber do-nut technology, and to be honest, that does not worry us one bit, but if you want total driving pleasure and reliability, you’d fit the CVDS.
Why not seek out (If you can) another elan owner who has a CVDS installed, and unashamedly ask him/her if you can have a drive of their car, because it will only take a very short drive for you to realize what you have been missing out on, the difference is amazing, and if that is not enough to convince you then nothing will.
We have a truck load of testimonials from extremely satisfied CVDS conversion customers. The product is well designed, robust and ultra reliable, so we must be doing something right.
Fitting a CVDS conversion to your lotus elan is “A Fit And Forget Procedure” apart from the occasional inspection and requirement to inject fresh grease into the CV joints, which is simple to do via the grease nipples inserted into each adapter plate. A job that will take less than ten minutes.
The video above illustrates the ultimate in Lotus elan CVDS drive line system.
If you take a closer look.
- The adapter plates have been eliminated.
- The diff out puts are Up Rated, machined from high grade steel.
- The wheel axles are machined from highest grade axle steel.
- The splined intermediate half shafts are the same high quality components that we always supply, but they differ in length.
This is the absolute pinnacle of lotus elan CVDS design, but unfortunately, being of race quality means that the price is going to be commensurate with the quality.
The alternative of course, is our world renown adapter plate Australian designed CVDS that has been the main stay for over twenty five years now.