2012 British motor car day Rome Ga -

[cabc26b]

This past weekend the local triumph and MG clubs held their British car day up in Rome Ga. The event honored the 50th anniversary of the MGB and the Elan - It not an event I have ever attended but as the local lotus club president asked to bring an elan , i thought what the heck - ill drive up there. then I got to thinking , why not bring two - but who to drive the second one ... that was easy , i called Frank a couple of days before , he thought about for a minute and then agreed.

the weather looked questionable for the ride up with a brief shower on interstate 75 - we decided to use the interstate ( motorway) in the morning as the trafic was minimal . we used back roads on the way back , I lost contact with frank somewhere between Wasala and Canton and did not see him or the red elan until later in the afternoon when he returned the car. no incidents to report, both cars ran fine ( red car had not been started in over 6 weeks, she started up and ran fine)

pictures attached -

[Famous Frank]

George didn't tell the whole story. First of all, when you've been an Lotus owner since 1973 and currently you've been involved in a 4 year restoration, when someone like George asks "How would you like to drive an Elan to the British Car Festival, ..............well the decision
isn't a tough one and the only thing that took any time was getting the words out, "let's go!".

When it's been a few years since you've driven an Elan, you forget what a magnificent car they are. You steer with your fingertips, and through that you can feel the road, the suspension working, and hear the wonderful raspy exhaust note, ......all the while knowing you are getting 25 to 30 mpg.

This particular car George let me drive is an extremely original S1. Even the paint is original. He recently installed new donuts, it starts immediately, and goes down the road straight as an arrow. What a great machine. In addition to attending the British Car Festival, I also had to attend my son's Lacrosse match. As I was running late on time, when we got split up I continued directly to the match where the car received numerous admiring glances and questions such as "What kiind of car is that?". I ended up driving his car somewhere around 200 miles that day. As I had just been layed off from IBM, and my 61st birthday was coming up, it was a terrific way to spend the day! And it has once again given me the shot in the arm to keep working on mine, which is what I'm doing this morning!

Thank you George! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

And when mine is done and we're back on highway 140, going through the hilly, curvy, countryside, I won't be so sedate!

Also here are a couple of pics of George and Greg letting me get measurements of where I should cut holes in the new front clip for the wiper arms. If anyone has any measurements or pics of the wiper assembly out of the car, it would be appreciated. It seems there are more maladies do to the accident damage back in the sixties. The distance between the wiper boxes is shorter than on George's car or Greg's car, yet it matches up fine with holes in the old front clip. Also there are bends in my wiper assembly which I don't know if they are suppose to me there. The bends also line up with a couple of places where the old front clip was patched together from other vehicles.