Forty Years of Bad Road

[Quart Meg Miles]

The title was appropriate when I first conceived this thread (before I joined the forum) when I was writing up an account for the Website pertaining to my previous car (shown as my avatar and below). What was it (to be revealed later)?

Today my Elan is officially 60 years old, as shown in its original Log Book, though it wasn’t taxed for another week. It had left the factory as a kit in August 1964 and assembled by the original owner’s brother, who (a Forum member now living in Canada) owned it two years later. Unfortunately I have lost all the early photographs of my ownership, but they may turn up.

The registration mark ‘ARD 1 C’ is original but was especially issued from the Reading office for a reason I don’t yet know, as the first dated letter suffix was ARD 518C, or thereabouts; I’d always thought that they reset the number to zero with each new year letter but a book I bought (by Jonathan Del Mar) shows that normally they just continued with the front letters and numbers, as before, and slapped the year letter on the end when it became due. BTW 'A' was for 1963 but many offices, including Reading, never used 'A' or 'B'.

At the end of the article (referred to above) I wrote something like “ I was over-driving it and with the reliability issues there was only one car on my shopping list: a Lotus Elan! What could possibily go wrong?” What indeed, but first buy one. I sold the incumbent car on Exchange and Mart (the eBay of the day) for a loss of just 10% after nearly four years ownership while a post-grad student (it was a graduation present to myself in 1965) so had little cash though a reasonable salary (4 times my 3 years student grant of £400 per year) in my first job in Teddington, SW London.

My first stop was a local Lotus dealer in Hampton Court where I drove a Green S3, I believe, and learned the first rule:, don’t move the steering wheel if you don’t want to change direction while changing gear! I hadn’t realised I did, but the previous gear change was slicker than the Elan’s. Too expensive, I was really restricted to a S2 and the second stop was JK motors somewhere around Enfield where I drove a “Special Equipment engine, sir” drop head, and recognising where I was I called in on an ex work-mate (from before I went to college). It started raining while I was there but, surprisingly, I worked out how to erect the hood (roof). It was a quick car but the rear wandered and when I shook a rear wheel, back in the garage, everything rattled! No deal, but they rang me at work to tell me they had jacked up the car and everything was tight! Now there’s a thing.

Then I visited Len Street Motors in Chelsea (?) and sat in a lot of cars, including an E-type, for the hell of it, but it was all too expensive. But the sales manager took me up floor or two and showed me a white S2, looking neat and tidy under the rain drops. Either then or later I took it for a drive: obviously a close-ratio gearbox ( which I was used to) explaining the slightly less sharp acceleration round Hyde Park etc but I liked it and bought it! What could possibly go wrong.

[trw99]

Nice write up, Meg, thank you.

Its my birthday tomorrow. I shall be 11 years older than your Elan!

Tim