Here's what it looked like when I first bought it.
The blue color was the third paint job. It was sprayed over the red
that was sprayed over the original paint. It's hard to see in the
picture, but my Elan originally had chrome wheels. Apparently, the
car had been one of the ones put on display at the auto shows, and sold
by the Lotus dealer in San Diego, California after the end of the year's
auto shows - Auto Expo in LA. I've been told that only a few sets
of chrome wheels were made by the factory for shows. Just for reference,
my copy of the original '72 sales brochure has a yellow Elan with chrome
wheels.
I
did the restoration of my Elan in my garage in Wyoming (the rest occurred
in my garages in California, and then Virginia). The problem in Wyoming
was the cold for nine months of the year. I used to have to fire
up my kerosene heater and let it run for a couple of hours just to get
it warm enough so that the florescent lights would come on. Having
tools stick to your hands from the cold just was not fun. The cold
temperatures was one of the major reasons that it took so many years to
complete the restoration.
Body
stripped, getting ready to get it painted. At this point, the interior
has been removed, and all the exterior trim has been removed.
On
the way to the paint shop. I was teaching my son what would happen
if he didn't wear a seat belt.
This is the custom, super cut down door version of the Elan.
The engine and transmission are removed, and not only is the trim removed,
but the doors are also removed.
During the restoration of my Elan, I chose to paint
it red. I figured the cops would get me no matter what color it was,
so I might as well make it red so everyone else would see me. That's
my 9 year old (at the time) daughter, Krissy, behind the wheel.
Painting it red didn't help. Some guy in
a camper van decided that he had waited long enough at a stop sign, and
pulled right out in front of me. Despite my best efforts, the left
front of my Elan connected with the huge steel plate mud flaps on the back
of his van (just a couple more inches and I would have cleared).
When the cop finally showed up, the first thing he said was "You must have
been going pretty fast." I wasn't, but since I was in a Lotus, he
tried pretty hard to get me to admit it...
I
took the Elan to Evans Leinbach Refinishing in Salisbury, North Carolina
to have it repaired. While waiting for a slot in Evan's schedule,
my wife bought me a book on Elans. That was the first time I had
seen pictures of a Colorado Orange / Cirrus White Elan. That was
when I decided to take the car back to its original colors. Since
the repair required that the car be stripped down to the gel coat (again),
Evans said that he could do the two tone paint job. He did a perfect
job; you can't even tell where the new front clip has been bonded in.
I highly recommend Evans. I talked to Evans at the LOG, and
he was telling me that most everyone thought the orange color would be
terrible (as I originally did). But once you see it, most people
like it. Apparently, a lot of others agree; my Elan won "Best of
Show" at LOG 18 (Lotus Owners Gathering).
Notice my license plate in this picture. I
lucked out - no one had taken "ELAN", when I first registered the car in
Virginia.
This
is a shot of the engine compartment of my Elan. Everything's been
rebuilt, but I left things original (didn't replace / repair / repaint
parts), like the cam cover, if it was still in good shape. The engine
is the original twin cam. It has new pistons, and most other wearable
parts in the engine replaced.
The
dual Strombergs have been rebuilt. The headers are original Lotus
factory headers that have been ceramic coated to preserve them. The
rest of the exhaust system is stainless steel.
A
shot of the Elan's dash. You can't tell from the picture, but the
wooden dash is heavily cracked. I plan on replacing the dash soon.
I'm lucky enough to have the original un-cracked dash pad.
A
shot of my car at the LOG 18 Autocross. I was having fun - didn't
do well, wasn't really trying - new tires, and I was still shaking down
the car after all the restoration/repairs.
Yea... That's the story...
For
those who insist on calling the color of my car "Pumpkin Orange" instead
of Colorado Orange, I've included this picture.
Notice the pumpkin that I'm holding. Note the color of the pumpkin, and note the color of the car.
Uhhhh, never mind...
Lotus
was World Champion; not me...
The
original emblem on the front of my Elan. I just put it here because
I took a picture of it.
This web page just got started because I bought a cheap scanner, and was having fun with it, and the Elan pictures were handy.
Do you need to E-Mail me?
Other handy Lotus Links:
Lotus Cars USA - US Distributor of Lotus
Allan Perry's Lotus Page - Keeper of the Lotus Mailing List - Access to the Lotus Mailing List
Golden Gate Lotus Club - Lots of Great Info About Lotus
Dave Bean Engineering - Parts Supplier, Official US Distributor of Vintage Parts
JAE Lotus and English Ford Parts - Parts Supplier
R D Enterprises - Parts Supplier
Sports Car World - Parts Supplier, Lots of Used Parts
Tingles Lotus Center - Parts
Supplier