Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

the body number is not 3285 but 3825 the chassis is 264222 or was until the front y piece was replaced. the only record andy graham is one line from a ledger , the signature in the ledger is tiny and unreadable but the initial might be f and the surname lea or u then n or r then g or y. the car had the following non standard fittings when robin got it, bendix fuel pump, 51/2 rims on standard centres, roll bar, race harness for two seats, brake servo,
,fat radiator, an oil temperature guage and maybe an oil cooler. robin has told me that he bought the car privately from a seller he met under a lamppost on the brentwood bypass as he couldn't find the sellers address so arranged to meet by phone. he thinks he might have seen the car advertised in a motor sport mag.. I have the disc with all the 60's Motor Sport mags and cannot find an a ad that matches the car. robin also removed a barc sticker from the car. that's all we have on the first owner.

[quote="elansprint71"][quote="trw99"]Pete, in a previous post a few years ago ....

Tim[/quote]

Tim,
D'ye know, I kind of thought that we had some sort of discussion on this car previously but could I find anything with the "search" function?

3285 does not sound like a 26/R body number to me but it seems the more I learn the less I know. [/quote]

Pete, I just entered 'mmy599c' into the search box and found 5 results!

Tim

Alan, the unit number is the VIN, as in 26 (Type No) / 4222 (Unit No). Your Body No is 3825.

I am a number ....

Tim

I think I might have found the name of the guy I bought the car from. Unbelievably I have a work diary from 1967 and an entry w/c 15th May there is a name Jerry Marshall from St Albans, with a phone number Barnet 54674.
There is another number 5169, but no indication of what this is. There is a note "Autosport" and "Motoring News" which possibly refers to the ad for the car, although I was also using these mags to advertise a Fintray House Hillclimb.

Since my last note I have looked up Gerry Marshall on the net and there is a comprehensive entry in Wikipedia and a Telegraph obit..
He was a director of the Barnet Motor Company and did indeed race an Elan.
Unfortunately he died with a heart attack 10 years ago.

Is this the same Gerry Marshall who became best known as a driver for Dealer Team Vauxhall ?
If i remember correctly he drove some monster engined Firenza's and Chevettes.
One was know as Big Bertha.

Ken

That is him. Digging my way through the net, I see a comment by a Graham Marshall (son?) and also a comment by a Denise, who notes that Gerry Marshall raced her father's Elan.

Gerry Marshall in an Elan would have been a tight fit!

His son chats on TNF and would be helpful, I feel sure.

Tim

Gerry's son on TNF is called Gregor; seems a really nice bloke. Not sure he was even born when Gerry was racing Elans.
He has a website: http://www.gregormarshall.co.uk/

The first Elan Gerry raced was a 26/R which was owned by Martin Lilley (owner of TVR at that time). It was painted pale blue with a dark(ish) hard top and fitted with the small "chinese eye" headlights (not the larger perspex covers to the standard headlight aperture). This car carried the fake registration BAR1, for obvious reasons, if you know anything about Gerry. It originally had a 1865cc engine built for it, which was crap and led to litigation, never actually having been fitted to the car. A 1650cc engine was built by Expert Engineering, based in Ware; this car cleaned up just about everything in 1965 and Gerry did almost all of the driving. He so nearly beat David Piper in a 250GTO at Brands on Boxing Day but Pipes shoved the Elan off and although Gerry caught him up again he ran out of laps. This car was sold to... ?

A second Elan was purchased for 1966, this also carried the fake registration BAR1 and was painted in the same colours.
This one did not go so well; the new engine from Expert Engineering never worked properly and the car was crashed very heavily at Brands Hatch (I have a good photo of it happening!), Gerry described the car as "written off" but they did rebuild it although he had gone off driving it! John Miles drove it a couple of times for the Barnet Motor Company team but he could not do much with it either. It was sold around the time Gerry left that company. Gerry gives no hint that he actually owned either of these cars himself.

Interestingly there is a genuine, pale blue, 26/R currently racing in the UK carrying the BAR1 plate. Perhaps Dave Hughes can give us more details?

Just bumping this thread to see if Alan Bell or Robin Johnston can bring us up to date or have any more info to share.

My turn to bump this thread. Any further news?

Tim