elansprint71 wrote:David, welcome to the forum!
Do you have any photographs you could share with us? It is great when we can add any historic images, no matter the quality and also any personal information about the car.
Great to have you with us.
hello Lotus friends - i am sorry to take so long getting back to you - my wife recently died after a long fight with dementia, one of today's scourges, and unlike many husbands, i adored my wife. we have a long love story which i won't go into, but we met in 1954 and fell in love at 1st sight - something else i think is as rare as our 26Rs are now, at least the kind that "bears it out, even to the edge of doom" – one of my favorite sonnets, which i was reciting to her as she lay dying.
now, as to my 26R, i owned it in part of 1966, all of 1967 and part of 1968. i've given many details to Mr Larsson, but to recap the main stuff: it was delivered, badly prepared, to Autolab Imports in Woburn MA, USA in the fall of 1965 and Terry Secher and Jean Guy (Frenchy) Fiset prepared it over the winter of '65-'66. Mr Barrie''s (?) comments that it might have been in Britain at some point are not only undoubtedly true, but i believe it had been raced there because the type of disarray it was in was unmistakable evidence of racing history, things you can't do with normal street wear - worn out brake pads - impossible to wear out on the street – i know, as i both autocrossed it and drove it on the street during my whole ownership, and those hard compound pads just wouldn't, and couldn't wear out.
it was driven to an SCCA New England Regional championship in 1966, mostly by Robert Colombosian, who raced under the name Bob Colombo, but very occasionally by John Todd, who was a 3-way partner in OTC Racing, along with Bob as the "C", and Henry Olds, a silent partner and Business Manager. they raced it under the aegis of a tax write-off, as advertising for Autolab Imports.
i have many stories of Autlab, as i worked there during the same years i owned #23, but i'll tell just one as it praises someone i still like, respect and admire as the best kind of chap to be in our sport:
i am talking about Skip Barber, who was at that time my Sales Manager and as nice a man as i ever worked with, or even knew - he was kind, gentle, incredibly knowledgeable, both about the business and about racing- there can't be a sports car driver alive who doesn't at least know about Skip. he of course owns Lime Rock Park and was a very successful Can-Am driver with his McLaren MkIIB - a car i tried to get from him in an even swap for my GT40, which i stupidly traded my beloved Lightweight Elan on and regretted for the rest of my life. i've told Mr Larsson that if i could have that car back, i'd hang it from my living rm ceiling just to have it back. i've missed it all my life, and at least i'm happy to have finally found it, and even happier to know Mr Larsson is still racing it - after all, that's what they were intended to do.
i autocrossed #23 in 1967 and part of '68, very successfully with the Corvettes of Mass Club (COM) but only gained FTD once, even though this car was clearly faster than most of the competition including John Paul, Sr. in his very fast 427 Cobra, and all Cobras, 'Vettes and everyone else except Monty Wells in his extremely fast Ginetta G4. i actually owned a G4 myself, which my girlfriend (who never had a driver's license) fell in love with when we had if for sale in our show room at Autolab. it was #W166 and i sold it to Robert Cummings, another salesman there, who wrote it off on his honeymoon trip (!) but i understand it was rebuilt and still exists. forgotten who has it now.
anyway, i wish to clear up the thing about FTD, in this case at Salisbury Beach, a little (but fast) parking lot course in Hampton, NH. the COM drivers hated my Lightweight because we were always in contention for FTD. they didn't want that record to be taken by an "outsider", especially in one of them funny foreign thangs, but one day, i was the last car to run, i had 2 runs, and on my 2nd run i just pipped Monty's time by a few fractions of a second. well there was not legitimate reason for Monty to get another run - he had his two tries, and i beat him fair and square, i was loading the car up to go home and heard over the PA speaker that Monty was being given another run. i was duly perplexed and went over to Lyn Cosa - a very sweet young lady, and the official Timer for those events, and asked her why Monty got another run. forgotten her answer, but it was something like a pylon jumped out at Monty on the back straight and scared him, so he gets another try.
there was nothing i could do - she was the timer - which reminds me, i also never saw the stopwatches either, but it wouldn't have made any difference. they were in charge and that was that. Lyn was John Paul's girlfriend at the time, so what could i do. but it was cheap, and below the dignity of people who are racing unofficially, for fun only, and i regret ever being part of such a lowly affair. at least i was man enough to go to the little watering hole we all met at after our events, and accept my runner-up trophy. i think i threw it away as soon as i got home.
further evidence of how fast that car was is that a little later in the SCCA season (1968 now) i set a record at Bryar (now NHIS) that stood against all comers for the rest of the season, including Skip, a much better driver than i, and his McLaren, and all Cobras, Corvettes, Formula cars of any stripe, Can-Am Cars, what have you - everybody, bar none. as i said that car was blazing fast, especially on a track like Bryar. of course that was the perfect track for it before it was expanded to become NHIS, and of course i knew the track the way Bobby did - in fact, he set FTD in 1966 in an SCCA race at Bryar, a record that stood until the end of the '66 season.
the car would have been Nationall SCCA Champ, but it blew a freeze plug at Sebring with Bobby aboard while he was leading his class and, i think, was in some startling placing like 6th overall against the best drivers in the world. i told you, that car was, and must still be, inordinately fast.
i spent the winter of 1966-67 with Frenchy dolling it up a little for the street, but very little. perhaps the most noticeable change was that i hated the pop-up headlites and threw them away (FAR away) and had PL700s faired into the fenders, quite distictive, as they were left uncovered and the scoop in the fender was much shorter than usual. this is one way i recognized my car in a picture on some track when it was painted yellow you can hardly miss those distinctive headlights.
well, i have many other stories, like a guy in an E-Type Roadster in rural Northern Massachusetts who i came upon and he kept speeding up more and more and thought he was going very fast, and couldn't understand this odd litte thing behind him who couldn't understand that he was King of the Road in his mighty E-Jag, until finally i saw a short straight where it was safe to pass, and i blasted by him like he was standing still and went on to potter along on a nice leisurely Sunday drive.
well, i've detailed much else about the car, but that's all in earlier emails and can be looked up. more to the point is that i have many pictures of S2-23 both before and after my street preparations (which amounted to a little spare carpeting and the lights and some instrument changes. i drove it and autcrossed it for more than 2 years, and it never gave me a bit of trouble on street or track. we went over it before i made the awful mistake of trading it in on GT40 s/n P/1058 at Al Grillo Ford in Lynn, MA.
in an ironic sequel to the GT40 disaster, i ended up selling the GT to Skip, of all people, who agreed that it was in terrible shape when he got it. oh, the body was alright and interior, but it had unmistakable signs of having been raced. it was palmed off as a show car, used only as an advertising tool for Ford, but you can't hide the kind of disc wear, brake dust that gets into everything, and so forth that that car showed. it had been raced alright, but like the Monty Wells thing, you could never prove it. Skip sold it on, to Harvey Seigel, whom i won't discuss any further, thank you, and that's the end of it until now.
you must agree this diatribe has gone on long enough, so forthwith, the pictures – i hope; i had trouble attaching them last time. but for now, keep on truckin' Mama, truckin' my blues away... –david carroll
PS: i sitll can't understand this arrangement and can't seem to attach my jpegs of S2-23. could one of you, preferably Mr Larsson, give me a reguar email address and i can supply my pictures that way? my email is
[email protected]
Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2020 4:56 am
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