Surely you must be joking! I’m not joking. And don’t call me Shirley. Ah, the line that launched the second career of the up till then, a very serious and handsome actor named Leslie Nielsen. What has that got to do with Lotus cars? Well, what would you say when someone asked if you wanted a free Lotus Elan? Surely you must be joking. But if you are not named Shirley and you are not joking, then of course I’ll take it.
So sometime way before I got the Seattle car project lined up, Steve Styers called me up and told me that a very good friend of his son-in-law had an Elan. That Elan had been sitting for a very, very long time. And this friend (Lee) was now suffering from Parkinson’s disease. So Lee was trying to clear some issues up and one of the issues was a 1967 S3 Elan that had been sitting under a tarp in his driveway on Cape Cod since…1983? AND this car would be basically free. Now free is usually the right price as long as you don’t have too many strings or expenses attached to the free thingy. So I asked if it had a title and please get me some pictures. On top of the Parkinson’s, Lee had to endure a series of very unfortunate personal and family tragedies. But I was in no rush and did not need another project right now, but I would be ready when the time came. Six months later Steve shows up at a Lotus Corps meeting with some very blurry and very pixilated pictures of a very fuzzy thing that sort of looked like an Elan if an Elan was covered with fuzz (turns out it was). Everything looked very tired and looked like it was shot through the lens of a dirty camera. I was on my second pitcher of beer (yes, I was sharing - of course!) at the club meeting so my eyes were a bit fuzzy as well. Now Shirl, I mean Steve, are you sure this thing is free? He said yes, so I said yes.
Now the well lubricated wheels in my head were starting to turn. Sue and I had just returned from Washington State where we spent a glorious 5 days packing an Elan project into a POD and then touring the state and then visiting my brother. Great time! So I went over to Steve and asked “How about you and Sally accompany Sue and me out to Cape Cod for a little vacation”? Steve seemed to like the idea and I could see a little smile pop up on Sally’s face so I think she was genuinely keen on the idea as well. We did some planning and communicating and looking at the weather and looking at the busy schedules of Steve & Sally and we came up with a plan to head out to Cape Cod at the end of April.
As I gathered information regarding the trip and where the car was located, I obtained the address of Lee and looked it up on Google Maps. I wanted to make sure that there would be access for the driver to back the POD into the driveway. Lee was no longer driving so he would not be going anywhere for the few days that the POD would be in the way. I punched in the address on Google maps and started zooming in. I zoomed and I zoomed
and as I was getting near the end of the available zoominess, I noticed something in the driveway of Lee’s house. When I clicked that final zoom and the pixels finished establishing their size and location I was able to see the fuzzy outlines (no beer in-volved this time) of an early S3 Elan. Cool! I could make out the tail light holes so I knew that the tarp was no longer (if it ever was) covering everything up. No worries. The price is right. I’ll take it.
The morning of departure came. Steve and Sally parked their car out in front of our house and we took a taxi for the quick 10 minute ride to O’Hare. I got the tickets printed up at the kiosk and we all headed for the TSA pre-check line. I guess the TSA is nice to old farts like us and we get to stand in a MUCH shorter security line. Steve was a little confused as he usually checks his bags at the airport. I assured him that this was easier and saved a lot of time. Until… They x-rayed Steve’s bag. The TSA found a little, tiny pocket knife. The kind you use to open packages. The kind that a Veteran and veteran mechanic like Steve uses the clean his finger nails. Surely you must be joking when you tell a Veteran that he can’t take a teeny, tiny pocket knife on the plane. Surely I did not know he had it in his bag. But surely he had intended to check his bag in the first place, so as Sally and Sue and I looked on, the TSA agent walked Steve back to check in where he forked over $25 for a checked bag fee and checked in his bag. Oh well, I guess I did not communicate our intentions to carry on our bags. Sorry Steve. No worries. We had plenty of time and made it to Boston airport without issues.
The wait to pick up Steve’s checked bag took quite a while and the line at the rental car place was nuts. So we didn’t hit the road out of Boston till two hours after touchdown.
In the weeks preceding our departure, I had posted a post on Lotuselan.net to see if any Elan fan lived in the Cape Cod area and if so, perhaps they would be willing to lend a hand packing this Elan into the POD. I know the car was all together with no spares to carry but I did not know if we could get it to roll. Were the tires all flat, were the brakes all locked up, was it stuck in the mud? Better get some help. So I got a quick response from Bill who said he could get off work and be there. Bill also said that he would try to convince Gary Anderson to come along. Now Gary is well know in the Elan community as an extremely knowledgeable Elan Guru with a whole lot of Elan projects of his own laying about his property. When I talked to Gary before the trip it kind of sounded that he might not be able to make it. No worries. We should have enough people around.
As we exited the airport Sue sent a text to Bill to let him know we would be late. Boston traffic was busy but we are from Chicago. We are used to heavy traffic. And the Boston drivers were actually a lot nicer than some of the idiots we get on the expressways of the windy city. It took us about 2 hours to get out to Bourne Massachusetts where our prize awaited. As we rolled into the driveway, there were already 2 other cars parked there and we were greeted by Bill who was laughing. “Gary already loaded the car” he said. And sure enough, when we walked around to the front of the POD, there sitting askew and peeing out water all over the place was the Cape Cod car already in the POD. Gary had brought along jacks and rolling dollies and tools and a come-along and ratchet straps and had borrowed plywood from a neighbor across the street. Gary had man-handled the car that would not move into the POD on his own. “Brakes are all locked up and the wheels are all rusted up” he said. Somehow, Gary had taken the wheels off the car, put it up on rolling dollies, moved it into the POD and now the car was sitting on 4 wheels that had been shoved under the body. Oh and by the way, Gary is what many people would consider being handicapped with an artificial foot. Amazing!
The car was so happy for the attention it was pissing all over the pod. And did it stink. I saw a Dunkin Donuts coffee cup in the interior. Apparently Lee had tried to bail out some of the water. Wow, what a mess! But it looked cool too in that the entire nose of the car was covered with Lichens. A kind of a mossy, mush-roomy, fungusy thing that grows in very, very damp areas. Sometime you see them on the body of an abandoned boat on the sea shore. Well, this is Cape Cod and the sea shore is not very far away.
We finished tying down what Sue now calls “The Relic”. Bill and Gary had to go home so we said our thanks and good byes and then we took Lee, the owner of the Elan out to dinner down the street at The Lobster Pot. Lee really enjoyed himself and you could see he had enjoyed the time with Gary and Bill as they loaded his Elan that had not moved in 35 years into the POD. Lee told me that this was the best day he had had in years. Now the deal was that the car was free, but Steve still gave Lee an official “Dollar” so that it was a real legal deal. During dinner however I told Lee that I would make a donation to his favorite charity which was The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s disease. He was pleased and we were pleased to make the donation.
We took Lee back home and headed down the road to a really nice time-share 2 bedroom, 2 bath home on a resort that Steve’s son-in-law owns in West Yarmouth, just off the ocean. What a nice place. Open the windows and you can hear the waves rolling against the shore. Take a short walk and go get your feet wet – beautiful.
The next morning we took off in the rental car on a little adventure. I had scoped out a bunch of places to visit along a very nice road that runs along the top of the Cape. We stopped at some beautiful beaches and some quaint little towns and some cool little ports. It was a lot of fun. Sue had Google Maps going on our two phones and we had the Readers Digest book on places to visit and roads to drive and we had a ball. Steve and Sally were not used to being chauffeured around. They usually drive everywhere themselves. But they enjoyed the ride and the scenery and the stops and by the end of the day they were enjoying a little nap in the back seat as well.
I had spent some time on Tripadvisor.com so I had picked out some nice seafood restaurants for our 4 night stay. And all of us like seafood and we were right by the sea so every night we had terrific seafood! Great clam chowder, great fish fry and even a local favorite – a lobster roll. Sliced up Lobster meat on a buttery roll. Yum! Back in our shared living room we fired up the fire place and had some pleasant conversations. Steve & Sally are a great couple to travel with and spend time with!
On Friday we had booked a boat trip to see the whales. Steve and Sally had done this in the past and they assured us it would be fun. And it was! It was a bit of a drive all the way up the coast to the tip of the Cape to Provincetown. It was a 3 hour boat tour but they sure knew where to find whales and dolphins. There’s one. There’s another. That one’s name is Fuzzy. Over there is Alice. They seemed to know all the regulars. The schools of Dolphins were cool to watch too. We were out in the middle of nowhere looking out into the horizon. Sue and I were hanging off one corners of the boat when a big whale surfaced right next to us and gave us a look. He or she was less than 20 feet away from me and you could look right into the eye, and the whale was looking right back at me. Must be curious. Just like we were curious I guess. Looked like the scene from the movie Cast Away where the curious whale gives Tom Hanks the eyeball. Yes, I like to compare life to the movies. What a great time we had. The young lady who sold drinks and snacks on the boat ran out and exclaimed that she had been on this boat 100 times and had never seen one that close. Cool.
Back on land at Provincetown we were entertained by the many, many “Free Spirited” tourists. Lots of colors flying and hand holding and lots of prancing going on. Hey, whatever floats your boat!
It was a long day and dinner was again really nice. We packed up and headed back to the airport on Saturday morning. Not knowing what traffic to expect, we were several hours early but that’s better than stressing out worrying that you might be late.
