Elan Flairs - the good the bad and some ugly ones

[garyeanderson]

Christian saw some of the photos that I posted on air-flow Coupes and asked about the Flairs on it. I emailed him and said I would get more pictures of them. So rather that just send them to him, I figured I would give all of you a chance to see what some creative person did to cover up the 7 inch rear and 6 inch front JAP Magna wheels. I posted pictures of the roll over bar that came out of the Coupe a while back. I still am curious if anyone recognises this Coupe. It was Right Hand Drive and used to be painted black with gold bumpers. At on time it was painted dayglow green, not sure how anyone that saw it could ever forget seeing it. I bought it in Ontario, Canada from Brian Robinson. He said it might have come out of South Africa, but didn't really know. Anyhow have a field day...

[Elanintheforest]

Kelloggs have a lot to answer for......

Mark

[gino1]

Not everyones cup of tea but the previous owner could have been inspired by the flares which look very similar on the car parked behind it !!
Gino

[GrUmPyBoDgEr]

Auch!

A case of "Handbags at dawn" here I think

[garyeanderson]

Maybe folks are hesitant to tell me what they really think (I don?t think so?) but I would like to know. I have heard from 3 different countries in
local phrases that I don't understand and would like to get a sense of what I should do with the current flairs. I could, A) leave them as they are for
historical (maybe hysterical) reasons, B) install the wide C Production flairs that I have access to the molds for, C) Buy a set of 26r arches and install them,
or D) put the stock arches back on (that I removed from the bitsa Elan - see
viewtop ... dfa208780c ) and remove all traces of this car ever being raced.
If I remove them I could probably save 5 pound
of weight per side, almost reason enough for me. If I do nothing that would be very simple and cost nothing. I could just cut the Elan up and sell off all of
the parts and get my money back and then some.
So give me a clue, pm or email.

Thanks Gary

[Old English White]

... Gary ,
More than our comments ,
You should answer to this question alone .
This Elan is not a standard Elan , no 26R , not a Modsport or a Shapecraft( this one's for you, Twincamman!)... but It had some history .
This is , I suppose , enough for you to justify your effort . After having said that , one day...
You will have to drive this Elan , and with such bodywork , you must be certain than it will have the right engine , wheels and so on ...
I saw previous pictures when painted white with a red arrow , but certainly with some wrong wheels and a bad height , but have you got some pictures during the time of its former glory !?!
Christian.

[garyeanderson]

Hi Christian

The white and red S2 body is a different car. It was raced in the 70's without the flairs. I do not know if it ever was on the track with them or not. All I have is the body from 26/4100 and not the complete car. Rob4100 owns the car today. The "Butt ugly flairs" Elan Coupe in this topic is out of Canada and I have a bit of history for it. The Elan is RHD car that was invoiced to C.A.P. Rerrie on 2nd Nov 1966. I don't know if this is a person or a dealer, I didn't get the original engine and the chassis is out on the Junk pile. I probably will never drive it but it will be built for sale. I don't think the Flairs are significant but the Jap Magna wheels (7 inch in back and 6 ince in front) along with the significant roll bar says to me it was raced some where at some time. I am not trying to pawn it off with the racing history as I don't know what it was or really care. I do know these mods were over the top for the period. All I can say is I don't like the way the Coupe looks with the bad hair flairs. I would like to do something about them, it will cost me the same amout of time to replace them with Stock arches, C production flairs or 26r flairs. The 26r flairs will cost me some money the other flairs are either in stock or can be made in a couple days. I guess if I put the stock arches back on I need a stock set of wheel to go on it. I'm not sure the 26r flairs will cover the 7 inch Jap magna's so that leaves me with the C productions flairs. I guess a few of folks on this forum have seen them by now, but no one has commented on them. I kind of like them but like I said I won't own all these Elans forever and I would like to know what other people think. So what does anyone/everyone think of the C production flairs?

[Jas]

Hi Gary

I don?t care much for flares and I think that the Elan is prettiest when kept close to original.
So here is my vote for, D) put the stock arches back on.

Regards

[Old English White]

... Gary ,
Having read your answer,
If you are not sure about its racing history ,
If you are not re-building this Elan for yourself ,
Then , prefer having it back close to stock (as Jas just wrote ...) or 26R , you'll allways get a better price , and sold the JAP mag' wheels separatly (if they are clean , you may sold them quickly and pay a set of stock steel or Minilite's) ...
Christian.

[cabc26b]

Hi Gary -

Your making great progress on the tingle body and its fun to watch the progress semi-realtime as you do it -

My two cents - If it were my car I would put the 26R fenders on it - for a couple of reasons, since so much of the car is not there ( chassis, engine etc)
not sure what you gain by resetting the car back to stock - I can tell you that the expense of the vac operated head lamps helps defray cost of the 26R fenders - 6' is no problem with the 26r kits and if the offset is close you should be able to make the 7's work as well .

On the C prod fenders I think for a race car or a track car they are representative of a period here in NA and look ok on bodies that have no windshields. the bigest issue with the C-prod fenders may be the 8 inch wheels that go in them ( minilites ???) - I think getting 13" tires that will fill the flares leave you in race only compounds -

[garyeanderson]

Well I guess that the order of my preference is the 26r arches followed by stock and then C-Prod. That being the case the Elan will sit in the trailer with the "bad hair flairs" for another year or so until my economic condition improves or some loans me a set of 26r arches to splash. If I put the stock rears back on the, fronts would look odd and rather half aassed so it's probably better to do nothing. Thanks to all for their opinions, sometimes its hard to see when its all right in front of you.

Gary

[LotusFan90]

Gary,

Here is a photo of my fathers' '67 S3. He installed the flares in the early 70s to accompany wider tires. In this picture the car is up on blocks; We were changing the rear suspension from donuts to a CV setup. Along with a new rollbar, brakes, etc.

[elj221c]

Gary,
Definitly NOT the blue ones. They are even uglier in my opinion. I don't think the ones you have are that bad but opinions do differ. Less work to keep them, too. If you must change then go for proper 26R ones. I've had loads of people urging me to put mine back to standard but just as many like it as it is. In any case, mine has spent more time with flairs than without, having been converted around 1970, apparently, so it is more 'original' as it is.
Roy
'65 S2

[garyeanderson]

Gary,

Here is a photo of my fathers' '67 S3. He installed the flares in the early 70s to accompany wider tires. In this picture the car is up on blocks; We were changing the rear suspension from donuts to a CV setup. Along with a new rollbar, brakes, etc.

The flairs look quite large (the back flairs are a bit tough to see), at least as large as the C-prod flairs that I have availaable to me. They do look better than the "bad hair flairs" on the Coupe in this post. I still think Lotus got it right with the 26R flairs, 6 inch wide wheels on the Elan is probably the optimum, except for an all out
autocross Elan (D modified).

Gary

[elj221c]

[quote]I still think Lotus got it right with the 26R flairs

Definitely.

Roy
'65S2