Lotus Elan S2 DHC

The Lotus elan epitomises everything a true drivers sports is meant to be.

Any elan owner would tell you, for its miniscule size, the elan punches well above its weight in performance, braking, and handling, even Gordon Murray, the McLaren F1 designer says, “the elan is simply one of the best sports car ever built”, his word is good enough for me, but to be honest, I formed that opinion several decades ago, the writers passion for the elan has meant racking up more than thirty eight years of building, rebuilding, fibreglass repair, sheet metal fabricating, machining, welding, as well as designing and fabricating and casting special after market parts for the elan, not to mention the many thousands of miles of addictive and enjoyable driving that’s been had.

It is a pure joy to take the elan out for a good blast on a favourite stretch of road every now and again.

But it hasn’t always been that way. The writers journey and introduction into elan ownership was paved with having to rebuild from the ground up, a totally bastardised, and hugely molested Lotus elan. The car you will see in the video below had spent most of its life being thrashed around many of the race circuits in Australia, until the writer spotted a classified advert in a weekend news paper, (1981) which stated; “For Sale, S2 Lotus elan”.

From that day, I knew I was about to become the owner of a Lotus elan, albeit, a totally derelict one at that. But looking back now on the frustrations, and difficulties in finding parts, (This was in the early 1980s and and pre internet), but the knowledgable people in Club Lotus Australia, and later, the online forums, collectively, it could be said that a successful rebuild of a lotus elan in pretty bad shape, is the end result and culmination of advice and help from many people, and of course a good workshop manual, DIY mechanical skills, and a few tools hanging on the shadow board in the workshop.

One person in particular who is a stand out and a treasure trove of twin cam knowledge is long time historic competitor Rohan Hodges. I first made acquaintance with Rohan at a Lotus National gathering in Queensland during the 1980s. Rohan has been very generous with loaner parts when required, and has always will to provide extremely help-full advice, encouragement and inspiration, Rohan is great with spread sheets, the resulting calcs are provided lots of answers while building the current big 1700cc twink engine which powers the elan now.

I could write for hours about so many aspects of the frustrating, tedious, painstaking work, rebuilding the elan during those early 1980 years, but I wont, that story is best left for another day.

But what the writer would like to share with you is what the car is like today, and the immense driving enjoyment the S2 elan provides.

The Lotus elan must blessed with the slickest four speed gearbox on the planet, coupled to a 1700 twink that really hauls, a bullet proof CVDS conversion, this must come very close to being in Lotus heaven.

I guess the elan can be best summed up as pure driver involvement, and probably one of the best sports cars in the world to put the widest grin on the drivers dial, a well set-up Lotus elan is a beautifully balanced car to drive, and when you ask of it, it just delivers in spades, a truly exciting drive that few other sports cars can deliver today.

Now, sit back and enjoy the short video, plug in your auxiliary computer speakers, or pop the head phones on, and turn up the volume.