OV9

Another run out in the Bristol yesterday to meet some old work colleagues for lunch. Dale brought his 1971 Elan Sprint that he’s owned since 1972 and has personally covered over 100k miles in it. It’s also been restored several times, including two new chassis and three engines rebuilds. A lot of commitment there.

It’s a handsome thing that Bristol. Your mates lotus sounds like the perfect object for the ship of theseus question they are lovely, and impossibly tiny compared to modern cars

Sundayjumper wrote: Sun May 02, 2021 8:56 am Another run out in the Bristol yesterday to meet some old work colleagues for lunch. Dale brought his 1971 Elan Sprint that he’s owned since 1972 and has personally covered over 100k miles in it. It’s also been restored several times, including two new chassis and three engines rebuilds. A lot of commitment there.



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Triggers broom

Had my motorbike serviced this week - figured it was due as last one was 2017 . New chain and sprockets as well. Took it to the coast yesterday and am still amazed the speed from 100 to 160 (kph obvs). Was a few camera vans out tho.

Just as small reminder in kph

Those Elans are pretty and probably the only car that can pull off a white-red-gold colour scheme with style.

That Elan is beautiful, and arguably my all time favourite car. IMO manufactures should be fined for producing cars any bigger or heavier. Elans remind me of my old suggestion that car tax should be based on a combination of vehicle height and weight.

2 new chassis and 3 engine rebuilds

Spring fitted, car now sits level (something my neighbour pointed out but that I hadn't noticed due to an oddity of how I park).

Doesn't feel like it drives and differently (it never pulled under acceleration/breaking etc but I've not driven outside town for over a year so it's not like I've had the opportunity to really push the car and feel things like that), but have taken its over some speed bumps etc to settle and it seems fine.

And yes, torqued up the lower shock mount and the wheel nuts properly, the wheel nuts took a stood on three foot breaker bar to remove, neighbours mains powered impact didn't even touch them...

NGRhodes wrote: Sun May 02, 2021 1:26 pm Those Elans are pretty and probably the only car that can pull off a white-red-gold colour scheme with style.

Small interesting back story on that topic. Red & white is the car's original colour but at the time he didn't want a red & white one, as he didn't want to be a rolling cigarette advert. The red/gold/white colour scheme were the Lotus racing colours due to sponsorship by Gold Leaf:


The car was only a year old when he bought it but it had had three owners in its first year (!), seemed to be a Friday afternoon car, and when he heard of it being for sale it was actually in the process of being repainted pistachio like this:


He didn't like that either so he got them to stop the pistachio and paint it blue instead like this:


And that colour it remained until an early restoration in the late eighties when it was reverted to red & white. By then it was less of a tobacco connection, more just a classic Lotus colour scheme.

A full and very high quality repaint just under two years ago to refresh the paint that was getting rather tired. It’s now superb.

335d update, the standard springs are going back on. I can live with the ride but not the height.0

#old

Elan looks cracking in the blue.

Elans are indeed lovely, just try get something that size through today’s regs..

Talking of which when are Westfield/caterham going to buy the rights to the S1 Elise chassis..0

Not happening with the bollocks EV rules is it. Unless they do a track day only car which will probably have a 50 decibel noise limit by then so you have to drive so slowly that the tire roar doesn’t upset the cunts who have bought a house 50 feet from the track

Love the Elan in Pistachio and red gold leaf.

While on the M25 yesterday something hit the windshield, but it was too quick to see and there didn't appear to be any damage. Was a bit odd as the cars in front were quite far ahead.

Looking out of the window this morning I saw that the entire O/S side trim moulding of the windshield had been ripped clean off! New one ordered.

Not sure how that happened.

One of the bumper grille elements broke loose last week. It’s just a dummy intake with plastic “body” behind it (didn’t take a pic, but that was disappointing and not very Loltus ethos) but the washer bottle sits behind it so was at risk of damage from this thing bouncing about. Luckily accessible via the passenger side wheel arch - thought at one stage I might need to pull the front bumper off - which did not excite me....

Nice one wheel peel on the road there - was that you, Mik?

I've just ordered the Haynes manual for the Galaxy so I can figure out how to sort the trim piece (and other minor repairs). They only make a version for the diesel cars, which seems odd. Doesn't matter when it comes to window windscreen trim pieces, but annoying on principle!