Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Hello there
My mother received a letter last week from a guy trying to track down my late father . This person claimed to be the owner of an old Elan that was once owned by Tara Browne and built by my father. I’d heard about Paul Howard’s book a year or so ago and the memories came flooding back to my mother and I.My late father once worked with Len Street after qualifying as a lotus mechanic and set up his own service centre in west London .Tara’s mother who was a client of my fathers enquired as to whether he could give Tara a ‘job’ to distract him from the party scene at the time. Anyway if anyone is interested I have a really nice pic of my dad and Tara and some lovely photos of old lotus elans at his garage .
My Father spoke very fondly of Tara and I remember him regaling me with stories about attending some party in Ireland and had the unfortunate task of recovering Tara’s wrecked Elan.
Cheers Julian ( apparently named after Tara’s son according to my mother)

Hi Julian,

Welcome.

Thanks for your interesting contribution. I’m sure many more will be along in a minute.

Can you post up your fathers name along with details of the business he set up!

As to photographs this forum can never get enough so if you can post with a brief description that would be brilliant. A few struggle with posting images - if you open a new post on this thread you will see an upload attachments tab, click, add image, upload image then place in line puts a link into your text.

More Lotus tales would be appreciated too!

Welcome, Julian.

Thank you for your story, all good stuff. I echo Steve’s plea above and would welcome more stories as well as photos.

Edit: Just seen the photos on the other older Tara Browne thread. Thanks for posting them, Julian.

Tim

My Fathers name was Ron Brooks and he set up a business underneath the westway flyover called Speedway motor engineering services ,I have vague memories of visiting as a child. As I said earlier Dad trained as a Lotus mechanic in the mid 60s and gained his qualifications whilst working at Len Street engineering. I’ve attached his old certificate pic which has pride of place in my study.

A pic of the certificate Dad earned at Len Street engineering

Thanks again, Julian.

I have never seen one of those certificates, a great piece of Lotus history.

Tim

trw99 wrote:Edit: Just seen the photos on the other older Tara Browne thread. Thanks for posting them, Julian.

Tim

I got Paul Howard's book some time ago, there a lot of pics in it.

I've just done a search for 'Tara Browne' and there are quite a few threads. Would it be possible to post a link to the thread you refer to ?

I should have said the 'Len Street thread'. Here is the link to the page with additional photos from Julian:

viewtopic.php?f=50&t=41119&start=45

Tim

Charliebr25 wrote:My Father spoke very fondly of Tara and I remember him regaling me with stories about attending some party in Ireland and had the unfortunate task of recovering Tara’s wrecked Elan.
Cheers Julian ( apparently named after Tara’s son according to my mother)

That would be Tara's famous 21st birthday party at his Guinness family's house - Luggala, in the Wicklow Mountains.

http://www.anervygirlsguide.com/style/2 ... ss-getaway and many other astonishing stories associated with the times and people....

Nick