60th Anniversary of the Launch of the Elan

[richardcox_lotus]

Yep I thought it went really real, thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks everyone

Regards
Richard

[trw99]

Thank you to all listers who attended yesterday. It was great to meet you, some for the first time. We ended up having a grand day with 60 Elans to celebrate the 60th.

Early arrivals at 0800hrs helped erect the CTL gazebos. William Taylor of Coteri Press and now full time at CTL very kindly donated four of his books as prizes for our raffle. The money raised was used to offset the costs of insurance, signage and toilet hire for the event. I was the last to leave at 1700hrs.

Matt Windle, Lotus CEO and to whom we owe thanks for allowing us to use his site, was an early visitor. He had been showing the Geely head-shed around the ever-expanding production facility at Hethel. He spent a deal of time admiring cars, bringing along an Emira for us to look over and chatting to owners and enthusiasts. They included Ricard and his wife from Sweden, our own Phil Harrison from NY and Chris Howe, who drove 5 hours down from north Yorkshire and 5 hours back again in the day, in his evidently entirely reliable S3 DHC!

Around lunch time we re-arranged all the cars for a group photograph, one without folk, one with us all standing by our cars. They will be on view presently via CTL and Lotus multimedia and in a report in Absolute Lotus magazine.

The two CTL tours were well supported and appreciated, Richard Parramint's excellent running tour commentary adding much to everyone's enjoyment. The parts department at CTL was also open for us to walk around and drool over - far too many shiny sweets for us kids! It was very kind of the CTL staff involved to give up their Sunday for us.

Then the icing on the cake was the arrival early afternoon of a pretty and well kept yellow S4 DHC, driven by Clive Chapman. It is his daughter Sophie's car. Clive then spent virtually the rest of the afternoon going around meeting cars and owners alike, making the draw for the raffle and having his photo taken. He seemed to enjoy himself with, as my wife puts it so bluntly, us little old men in our funny little cars.

I did not manage to take very many photos at all, but here they are.

Tim

[Spyder fan]

Here's my pictures in no particular order. Phil Harrison and myself travelled up the day before and took a detour to see the old factory at Cheshunt. The owner of The Monster Gym (Steve) turned up, saw our cars and came over to say hello and would we like him to open the gate so we could take the cars down the alley to the ramp for some photos. He's a really nice guy and we chatted about the buildings to learn that he has three years left on the lease at which point The Monster Gym and the office/assembly building will be no more. He said he was making sure to remove the commemorative plaque before this happens to keep it safe, I know that some of you keep in touch with Steve and it's good that he takes an interest and is always so welcoming.
I chatted to Clive Chapman when he visited the event and showed him the photos, he's aware that the buildings are going and mentioned that he was going to try and salvage the gantry that lowered the finished cars down to ground level.

These are pictures hosted off site, if you click on the thumbnails they open the pictures in a new tab.

Spot Phil Harrison on the ramp and Brian Clarke relaxing next to Phil at The Bird in Hand pub

[url=https://im.ge/i/1NwXpm]

[Elanintheforest]

Looks like a great turnout guys, and I wish I could have ben there.

Especially to look over the gorgeous S3 BRM Coupe. Perfection in an Elan!

Mark

[gjz30075]

Looks like it was a really nice event. Thanks for the coverage. Thank you Phil, Alan and Tim and anyone
else who posted here about the event.

[Verve]

Yes , a MASSIVE THANKYOU to TEAM Tim & Co for making it all happen .... we had a Great Day ... Joerg (my Co Pilot ) had come all the way from Switzerland ... & we thoroughly enjoyed it !

I also got some new parts from the super Classic Team Lotus ... & it was also nice to see & chat to Russell Carr , even though I don`t think I managed to convince him to put a targa top in the Emira yet !

Well done to everyone who attended this very special birth year event , of our most favourite car !

Cheers ,

Paul .