If there is something that the writer looks back on with fond memories as a young bloke growing up on the family farm in Australia during the 50s & 60s, it was the total freedom we enjoyed, doing pretty much whatever we wanted to do, without many restrictions, or being told you cant do this or that.
From the tender age of eleven or twelve, I always wanted something with an engine in it that I could tinker with, something to pull apart and put back together again, maybe even get the engine to run again… I always thought that would be great, and there was optimism at times that my dad would arrive home one day from a local farm clearing sale with something to tinker with… but sadly, that never happened, but I never held that against him, we got on pretty well.
For some strange reason, even as a young bloke, there seemed to be the gift of a natural aptitude with mechanical devices, a bit like the people who have an inbuilt talent to play music by ear. For me, that natural talent didn’t come from my father or anyone else, for some mysterious reason, it was just a natural part of my make up, maybe it was because of my inquisitive nature.
The secondary education in my teen years resulted in being a product of the Technical School (College) generation, (Remember them?) the opportunities that the tech education provided was something that I grabbed with both hands, loving every minute of the practical hands on engineering educational environment. The extremely well equipped trade shops the tech school had was a dream come true for me and for others, so many skills to learn, with wood work being the very basic skill, which was interesting enough in itself to learn…. but…
The ultimate favorites were the sheet metal shop, with so many sheet metal forming tools, and the engineering machine shop, with drills, mills, lathes, and centre grinders, etc, etc, both classes taught the basic and advanced skills for the future metal craft worker.
And learn we did, and happy to mention that the marks achieved for trade skill subjects were far and away above any of my academic level score. When the secondary school days were finally finished, another two or three years were spent attending night classes and learning more engineering skills.
As strange as it was, that something to tinker with soon appeared, almost at the farm gate, in the form of an old Model A Ford which was tucked away on a neighbors property in a shed, covered in a mountain a chook muck, plus a layer of red Aussie dust, after a short chat with the owner, I persuaded him into selling the old Model A Ford for fifteen quid, (Just before Aust converted to decimal) The deal was done!! And I couldn’t thrust the cash into his hand quick enough…
Now to get the old A Ford back to our farm… fathers come in real handy in these circumstances, we loaded the old A onto the Bedford truck, tied it down, and we took the old girl home for some serious tinkering.
A blast from the past, (Photo above) and the very early beginnings of a life long sports car journey. The photo, taken on a hot Summers day by my dear mum (Now deceased) of a petrol head teenager (Yours truly) at the tender age of 15 or 16 years, fanging around the old family farm in the stripped down 1930 Model A Ford. This photo is the only image in existence of the Model A Ford paddock basher.
Unfortunately the old Model A four cylinder engine was seized solid, and with the strip down of the engine, revealed the stripped teeth of the cam timing gear, this was going to provide some serious tinkering, but once the engine strip and rebuild was done, it ran like a charm…. if not rather smokey… but hey, its just an old A Ford.
Of course, as with any derelict vintage car, we found other things that were broken. But luckily, the tech school skills were coming to the fore, with both arc welding, and Oxy welding, as well as fabricating and machining work were by now just second nature.
The mechanical brake rods were mangled and bent, so they were heated in the old blacksmith charcoal forge and the bends and kinks were hammered straight on the anvil. The front chassis cross member was also badly cracked and destroyed, held in by rivets, it was removed, and another second hand cross member riveted back in. Parts for the old A Fords were quite easy to obtain back then.
The original gear shift lever, definitely not very sporting, was crying out to be modified, consisted of a great long stalk, and felt like it took a day and a half between gear changes, so that was cut and shut and rejigged into a much more sporting gear shift, my engineer brother in law thought that was pretty cool, yes, it broke a couple of times, but we fixed it and improved it, and it worked… very slick indeed, (No photos of this unfortunately) the Model A gearbox was a crash box, but with the slick gear shift, the gears could be changed like a dog box… no crunching of gears… if one was quick enough that is! But if miss-timed, it produced an agonizing mechanical noise that can only occur with an out of mesh crash box!
The old farm workshop was nothing fancy, had an old 1920’s flat bed lathe which was bought from a local junk yard for $40.00, (Old machines were dirt cheap back then). With some careful refurbishing, the old lathe proved its weight in gold, it was not a precision lathe by any means, but it was great for general machining work, the neighbor’s on the farm next door were as jealous as all get out…. a farm workshop with a lathe was unheard of back then, but this is what you do when you are exposed to a Technical School education.
Living on an isolated farm forces one to be totally self sufficient, if something breaks, you have to know how to fix it, same with the old A Ford, if it broke, we fixed it. But today, it can be difficult (And much more expensive) to restore and rebuild cars if you don’t have a multitude of practical skills and workshop equipment that can be put to good use, modifying things, re-making parts and doing repairs, as well as general refurbishing, can otherwise cost a fortune.
The online forums are full of requests where someone puts out the call for a recommendation to have some kind of mechanical work done… well, why not become your own expert? You can if you want, but it takes time, start studying and training your self in all manner of car restoration skills. The acquired skills will repay one self ten fold over the life time of rebuilding and restoration work.
The drivers seat in the old A Ford was secured to the chassis with lashings of No 8 fencing wire. The mechanical brakes… (What brakes?) were virtually none existent. The gearbox, a three speed crash box (Plus reverse gear) which required a blip of the throttle with a synchronized double-de-clutch action when changing gears. (Try explaining that technique to a teenager today)
The worm and peg steering had so much slap from lock to lock, it was a big challenge simply trying to keep driving in a straight line, but even more fun trying to control with a full tail out attitude slide in a wet and slippery grass paddock… (Insert big smile)
Between the age of 14 or 15, one of my relo’s had a very nice MG TF 1500, he let me have a drive of it one day, wow, that drive really cemented in my mind that a sports car was what I wanted..
At age 18, not long after obtaining my drivers licence, (A full licence in those days) A lovely MGA 1600 MK2 was acquired, the ownership of which lasted about eight years. The Gee, as it was fondly called, was a very reliable and pleasant sports car, safe to drive, with typical predictable MG handling, didn’t leak, was equipped with both soft top, and a nice GS hard top, some great memories are still vivid of MGA.
But the desire was building for the Lotus Elan.
Time passed by, but secretly there was a promise to my self that a Lotus Elan would be in my future one day.
In the days long before the internet was even thought of, an advert in the motor classifieds of the Melbourne Age caught my eye, inquiries were made to inspect the goods, and not long after that, the S2 DHC elan was acquired, which has been in the writers care now for nearly 40 years. This elan is the Ex Murray Bryden race elan, for the Aussie readers out there in the know.
But in the beginning, it wasn’t all beer and skittles. The pathway into Lotus elan ownership was paved with many traps and not knowing about certain things. This was the typical hard yards road route, purchasing a worse than basket case Lotus elan, this car marked the beginning of a very long, and at times, extremely frustrating journey of lotus elan ownership.
When I arrived home with the bits and bobs of the Lotus elan, my wife’s reaction was; “What are you going to do with that”!
So this is (Above) how the elan body was before the work began. The chassis is not shown here, and probably no need to mention that the task that lay ahead was going to be daunting to say the least, but bit by bit, and over an extended period of time, it all started to come together.
Not an hour was wasted, every day of every week, there was work to be done on the rebuild project, it took four years and five months of solid and determined DIY repair, rebuilding and restoration work. But as the months slipped by, it was nice to take a moment to stand back and admire the results of the hard work so far.
When I see other people displaying photos of their “just bought” derelict resto project, I often wonder if they truly understand what they are facing… if one has already traveled this road, you will know and fully understand, but for the uninitiated, the hope is that they are very skilled in all facets of classic elan rebuilding, or they have a very substantial budget to farm out the majority of the work.
The cost of any specialist automotive work can be daunting, so be prepared. The extra bonus today is that Lotus elan values have taken a leap with increasing prices as the years roll by, in my opinion, the elan has been a much “undervalued” classic sports car, and they absolutely run rings around other British sports cars of the same era.
The shot above was taken in 2013 after a forced restoration period of four years, (Second time around) the result of an unplanned off road excursion, (Yes, Ouch) the elan underwent an extensive body and chassis rebuild and restoration, hard to believe its the same car as that shown in the 1982 bare body photo above.
The 2013 photo is also representative of what the elan looked like just after the first rebuild – completed in 1985.
We’ve moved away a little from the initial introduction to this story, but the intended message is that, if one is eager to learn and perhaps be mentored by the more experienced people out there, you will acquire the skills and know-how to tackle many of the different areas of the pains-taking job of restoring the elan.
In the writers case, the only things that were not attempted in house were the electrical wiring loom, and the upholstery, everything else was completely dismantled, checked, rebuilt, re-fabricated, welded, machined, fitted, painted and reassembled. That included, engine, gearbox, chassis, front and rear suspensions and all related components. The entire body was all DIY fibreglass work, especially when fitting the flared guards, there were countless hours that went into it, the base coat and top coat painting was also all DIY…. A full DIY body prep, prime and topcoat and clear over repaint without a spray oven!! Who else would attempt that?
In all, a totally amazing and most enjoyable lotus restoration journey – Twice over to be sure. There are many other articles scattered through out this blog about lotus elan rebuild-restoration work, Sometimes, projects can become overwhelming, and when that occurs, its time to switch off, and take a break to recharge the batteries.
People often ask the question; Why choose the Lotus Elan? Well, that’s easy to answer, it was Colin Chapman’s idea of a race car for the road – They are definitely a car “For The Drivers”, that was well and truly established many decades before the saying was even coined, the Lotus elan is simply a fabulous drive.
Several decades have passed by, it is now a far cry from those lazy fun filled teenage days on the farm thrashing the chopped down old Model A Ford around. But even after several decades have passed, the passion of the teenage petrol head is still there, the S2 DHC elan is still a pretty amazing car to drive, and can definitely hold its own against many modern performance cars, the elan of course, absolutely shines on any twisty and winding alpine road.
But, there’s Just one last thing… I want to share a video with you.
This is a 2.5 minute video, recorded on a solo EMR (Early Morning Run) back in the middle of our Aussie summer. Departure time was 5.30AM, yes, really early, total drive time for the EMR was a little more than 3.5 hrs, to the top of one of the best Alpine climbs in Australia.
Turn your best speakers on, or stream it to your wall TV, and enjoy a twink on song, climbing to the top.
This is the same elan that started out as a basket case… (See beginning of story) But not any more.
Hope you have enjoyed the read, and watching the video.
What’s to like about the Lotus elan.
The main focus of the elan was always about the driver, the elan provides a seat of the pants driving experience, a gear stick exactly where it should be, and pedals exactly where they should be for proper sports driving, and the elan is totally lacking any electronic driver aid, no ABS, no lane assist, no cruise control,
hell, not even a cup holder (Who needs it?) Driving the elan brings together as one, both car and driver, and when your passion is lotus, you wouldn’t have it any other way.
Ceejay.