New guy getting a Plus 2

Post by: **The Veg** » Thu Nov 19, 2015 5:32 am

Hi all,
Some of you may have seen my thread in the Plus 2 Discussions already, in which I asked a few questions about a car I was considering purchasing, a 1970 Elan Plus 2.

The good news is that tonight I signed the title! In the words of Mike Brewer, "I've got meself a Lotus Elan!"

This is my second Lotus, as I had a 1986 Turbo Esprit from 2010 until 2014 and I'm pretty familiar with Lotus, having been a fan of the marque for most of my life. The Esprit wasn't my first experience with British cars though. When I was in the Army over in Germany back in the late 1980s I had a crapped-out Mini for a few months, and I grew up helping my dad keep a handful of Sunbeam Alpines running. Dad also had a couple of mid-'70s Alfa Romeos, which only further broadened my experiences. Learned to drive a manual gearbox on those Milanese lovelies too. My first car was a Super Beetle, and I've had a variety of things since then from a '77 Chevy to a turbo GTI to an Integra and currently a recent Mazda 3 (and lots of other cars too). I'm also *REALLY* into BMW motorbikes- I'm on my fourth one, an R1200GS.

I wasn't actually looking for a car, but things fell into place in an oddly right (or rightly odd?) way. The Elan belonged to a good friend of mine who bought it five years ago but sadly her trusted mechanic had some health-problems so the car mostly just sat in the garage. She bought it from its second owner who had done lots of upgrades to it, including an engine-rebuild that is still less than 500 miles old. The rebuild included having the head re-worked to big valve spec as well as shaving it to Sprint spec.The drive-axles have been upgraded to CV joint units, and it has adjustable Konis in the rear. Cosmetics are its weak point though, as the paint is faded and has its share of star-cracks. The glassfibre itself has some not-terrible cracks in a small few places, but the windscreen and windows are all excellent, although the seals are a bit perished. The interiour is a mixed bag, as the carpets and headliner need renewing but the original seat vinyl and centre-console are in pretty good shape. The chrome is excellent from end-to-end, and it comes with a lot of documentation including the original sale papers. My friend didn't want to sell it but the tuition for her son's special-needs school is really killing her, so something had to give. She's happy that the car is 'staying in the family,' as it were. I've promised to bring it by and let her drive it now and then, and she knows that I'll love it and give it the attention it deserves, both on the road and under the spanners.

The bad news is that I'm going away for ten days on Friday, and the car won't be ready to take home until after I've gone- so it'll be December when I can finally bring the car to its new home.

But I'm really quite chuffed to now have my second Lotus! It hasn't really sunk in yet, but I suspect that once I drive the car home it will. I can't wait!

Other details...in my professional life I'm a service-engineer for a German manufacturer of industrial machinery, I play bass in an instrumental-surf band, am a licensed pilot (but haven't flown in over ten years), huge James Bond fan, love to travel, cook, read good books, etc. I have several Lotus-friends in my local area, although none of them has an Elan. I live in the Atlanta metro area, and we're all depressed that Lotus Cars USA have just moved headquarters from here to Detroit. Arnie Johnson said 'screw Detroit' and retired!

Anyway, enough of my rambling. I'm happy to be here and looking forward to getting to know you all!