Another Elan history question.

[naleder]

Hi All. First post here. From Queensland, Australia.

I have an elan that I've owned for about 22 years. I just recently wrote to the factory and got some details on it.

When I bought the car in South Australia I was told that the original owner owned a Ford dealer in Adelaide and bought the car in the UK while over there. The owners manual says it was an E Owen of Somerton Park.

The nice chap from Lotus said it was sold to the UK market as a kit. It was deliverd through Plough Motors in Stonehouse Gloucestershire.

Which all seems to match. The question I have is there any way I can find out what the original registration was of the car? The chassis is 45/9101. Thanks!

[Elanintheforest]

I think that your best bet to find the original registration number would be to contact the guy you bought it from.

Once a car is exported, if notified to the DVLA, they delete the old records. If the car was exported in the 1970s, then the details wouldn't have got digitised in the first place, so they wouldn't have the record.

If they do have the record, they won't tell you what the original number is ! They have been increasingly difficult to deal with over the past 10 years and now they are downright impossible.

On the upside, my S3 Coupe was also sold by Plough Motors, and still has the badge on the glove box door!

Good luck with your hunt.

Mark Kempson

[naleder]

I think that your best bet to find the original registration number would be to contact the guy you bought it from.

Once a car is exported, if notified to the DVLA, they delete the old records. If the car was exported in the 1970s, then the details wouldn't have got digitised in the first place, so they wouldn't have the record.

If they do have the record, they won't tell you what the original number is ! They have been increasingly difficult to deal with over the past 10 years and now they are downright impossible.

On the upside, my S3 Coupe was also sold by Plough Motors, and still has the badge on the glove box door!

Good luck with your hunt.

Mark Kempson

Thanks Mark. Back on the road on the weekend.. wohoo! My car doesn't have a badge on the glove box unfortunately.

I'm the fourth owner of the car. I've owned it since 99. I'm not even sure I could make contact with the guy I bought it off let alone the original owner.

Given I believe he bought the car 53 years ago I'm not sure he would still be with us.

[SENC]

You might have some luck with historical records archives, depending on whether the county maintained its early records (74 or earlier). I got lucky and was able to get a copy of the logbook when my Seven was registered in 1965 in Hertfordshire. You'd have to do some digging through the archives for year/month (if you know it) to narrow down the search since you don't know the number.

https://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/arch ... g-records/

One other possibility is to try to track down import and initial Australia registration records. That is actually how I figured out the original owner of my Seven, I searched Victoria archives for folks arriving by boat (I had a couple variants on the likely last name from a piece of correspondence from the 2nd owner), then got a copy of the initial Vic registration after import, which had the registration number (or enough that I could search with at Hertfordshire).

Good luck!