It was barely a month since I had gotten my latest “Seattle car” Elan project parked in the basement of the Lakehouse when I got several emails & texts from folks in the Indianapolis area telling me that there was a 1965 S2 Elan project being pulled out of a garage and getting cleaned up for sale at Gator Motorsports. How could this be? Another S2 project? These have got to be getting pretty rare don’t you think? So I start to inquire and engage Brian over at Gator and let him know that I was interested. Why am I interested? Do I need another project? When will I get to this one? Where will I store it? How will I fund it? Why am I asking so many questions to myself? And to you!
Pictures of the car started to appear on the Gator website. A bit scruffy but not the worst I have seen. The crew at Gator spent lots of time with a power washer and shop vac getting out most of the dead critters and dead stink from the long neglected car. It looked to be almost entirely stock and not too shabby. No way to tell what the chassis would end up looking like. That occurs when you pull the body off down the line and start poking at things with a screwdriver.
Brian was acting as the middleman just trying to get the most money for the family of the Estate. He was having a private silent auction and had several bidders involved. The other bidders and I were trying to get from him when the auction would end and what they would accept as a fair offer. In the end, I ended up getting the car at a fair price basically because of my reputation of someone who actually restores these cars in a reasonable amount of time. And I live pretty close to Indy. I think the second place bidder was overseas.
Now the car was ready but the weather was not. I did not want to pay lots of money to have the car trailered up from Indy which is pretty close. One day round trip is usually no problem for me and my 1977 open trailer. But I also did not want to get out on I-65 in the middle of a nasty snow storm. And the weather between Indy and Chicago in early February is usually very volatile. One minute bright and sunny… 30 minutes down the road and cars are sliding off into the ditches. We also had just had a major snow dump in the Chicago area, making things a bit slippy as they say on road rallies. Brian had offered to bring the car up part of the way for a reasonable price. Part way having something to do with the licensing of their Indiana trailer. I procrastinated for a week to see if there would be a break in the weather. In the end, I got an email one day saying he was just coming up with the car. No charge for shipping. Super!
When they arrived and pulled the trailer into my ally I got to check out my project. Not bad. Everything was old and tired and saggy in some spots but it was all there. Hey, that kind of describes me! The funny part was that two of the tires would hold air for only about a minute. So we would fill up the tires and push the car quickly and as we pushed the car into the garage it got lower and lower real fast and harder and harder to push. Once we had it in its parking space, no wheel chocks were needed. It let itself down like one of those trick air bag low rider cars. It wasn’t rolling anywhere else until we got another shot of air into those tires. I thanked Brian and his helper, paid them the money for the car and now I have Elan project #11 all lined up. BTW, Gator Motorsports in Indianapolis is a super place to work with. Keep them in mind when you are looking for a special car or looking to have your special car serviced. No worries!
Later that month when I took the Indy Elan up North to the Lake house basement and pushed it in next to the Seattle Elan I noticed something interesting. The VIN on the Indy Elan is only two numbers off from the VIN on the Seattle Elan. I guess when you buy a bunch of Elans that is bound to happen sooner or later. Now which one should I do first? This has got to be the last early Elan project left in the world – right? Well, definitely not. More to come in a future Lotus Notus…. or two.
