Paul's signature on Glovebox

[Robhi]

Last year I was extremely pleased to become a sprint owner and my first delve into the Elan range. Just spent a few days doing some behind the dash tidy ups (very original car, hardly touched) and was intrigued to find the back of the glove box had the chassis number written on it and a flourish of a signature by 'Paul'. I spotted a similar ref in an earlier post on a much earlier car so I assume Paul must have been an established hand at the factory in 1972.

[gjz30075]

Same here, including his last name. Probably a different 'Paul'.

[661]

Don't you think the 'A's have a similar form? In which case Brian would be the surname???

[elanfan1]

Still around??

[gjz30075]

Steve, what a find! If the same person, what great stories he could tell.

[checkrail]

Hi everyone, I have an identical 'Paul' signature on the back of my glovebox too, on my '71 +2S130.

When I bought it from Paul Matty with lots of history there are photos taken during the rebuild including one of the rear of the dash and glovebox. This was done in the mid 1990's by Laurie Barton trading as Excalibre Engineering who amongst other things changed the chassis for a Spyder one.

There is a photo of him and car in the book 'Authentic Lotus by Robinshaw & Ross' In those days it had steel wheels but now has Lotus alloys.

I hope this is of some interest. John

[HCA]

Maybe it was a fashionable thing in the factory. I have 'John' and the chassis number on back of my +2 glove box.

I have seen a few signatures behing trim but nothing like some of the messages that were left behind trim on Jaguars destined for police work! The jobsheets that accompanied cars on the old production lines - certainly in Jaguer, had the customer destination on them so you can imagine all the art work inside a police car!

[JonB]

I think the mysterious Paul got around a bit..

Either that, or there's more than one of them!

[Foxie]

I've just had a look at my original glove box which I replaced some time back.
The back and top has "254 L" written with a marker. The figure "4" has been overwritten in biro with the figure "5". Which makes it "255" the final three figures of my chassis number, The full chassis number is 7005 100255 L.

Underneath is written the name "Billy"

It's a bit like a "message in a bottle"

[661]

Guess who?

[HCA]

We could start a glove box picture book...

[RichardS]

And looks like Tom signed mine

Richard

[pharriso]

Rick signed the Glovebox of the last elan made:

[Slowtus]

They are still doing it, or at least were doing it in the '90s - I have similar on my '91 M100.

[The Veg]

What was supposed to be the last Federal Elise belonged to a guy here in Atlanta. I say 'supposed to be' because somebody at the factory wrote this on the underside of the engine hatch, accompanied by several worker signatures, but a guy who worked at the local dealer at the time and had sold the car said he had some doubts that it was the actual last one.