History of Lotus Elan S3 1968-Mike Spence

[nico506]

Hi

I have a lotus elan that was purchased from the Micke Spence dealership during the year that he was killed at Indy and I am given to undertsand from the lotus club registrar that the car was purchased in kit form from this dealership located in motherwell up North.

So far I have been unable to trace ny history of such a dealership, supplier and wonder if any one has any details as to the background of the connection with Mike Spence the racing driver as I am keen to trace the full history of my car from the first day of ownership as it had a really hard life from 1968 through to 1974 where it was laid up and remained so until I bought the basket case of bits from Paul Matty in 2003 where i am now nearing completion following slow but thorough restoration and planning to put on the road in 2007.

Any information on this would help and thanks in advance for any pointers etc.

Regards

Nico

[mikecauser]

The Mike Spence dealership was in Maidenhead, Berkshire several hundred miles from Motherwell. I don't know whether the business took on a Lotus dealership before Mike started to drive for Team Lotus, but the two events were probably not more than a year apart.

The only published biography of Mike Spence appeared in 1963 so it isn't much help. There are web pages about him at http://www.grandprix.com/gpe/drv-spemik.html
and http://www.gpracing.net192.com/drivers/careers/549.cfm

Spence's connection with BRM led to his line of specially equiped Elans (& Europas IIRC) called Elan-BRM.

If you could track down Robin Alabaster you might find out a lot more, because he worked for Spence in the 1960s. He may have retired now though.


Mike

[tdafforn]

My +2S130 is a sister car of yours, it too was sold by Mike Spence Cars in 1973. I have seen some adverts for his company in some of the car magazines of the time. They seemed to deal mainly in Lotus's
Cheers
Tim

[twincamman]

I just visited the Spence web site ---the track shown isnt Indianapolis speed way but looks a lot like Indianapolis motor sport park -- --ed