In the Fall of 2018 I was facing a small problem - Too many Elan projects. At least too many for the amount of storage I had. I was just finishing up the second restoration of my own S1 Elan. It was looking good and running good. I like to store it in the little garage up at our lake house in Antioch so I can enjoy driving it on the back roads of Southern Wisconsin. It also fits nicely through the double doors into the basement there where I store it over the winter. I usually store my boat in the single car attached garage up there over the winter as well. But things were a bit stuffed this year. I already had three Elan projects in the lake house basement. The Seattle car, the Indy car and the Detroit car. Yes, I name the cars after the city that I pick them up in. And the Cape Cod car was sitting in the garage. So I did not have room in the garage for my boat, nor did I have room in the basement for any more Elans. What to do, what to do?
I think it was at one of the Lotus Corps meetings where I overheard Jerry Lofthouse saying that he owned a Lotus Europa and a Lotus Seven (actually a Westfield); now all he needed was an Elan to round things out. A light went off in my head. Granted, it was a 5 watt bulb in a 100 watt socket but let’s not go there. I talked to Jerry a bit and told him I could give him a super great deal on a really, really challenging Elan restoration. He said he would think it over, and at the next meeting he said he wanted to take the plunge. I showed him and his wife Elayne some pictures of the car to make sure they knew what they were getting into. Jerry was enthusiastic about the car and Elayne seemed to not be on the verge of using any sharp objects on Jerry, so we made the deal. I sold the car to Jerry for the cost of the shipping POD.
At the 2018 Ice Cream rally that was held at our lake house, we loaded the Cape Cod car onto my trusty rusty trailer and hooked the trailer up to Jerry’s Honda Odyssey, and after we all had stuffed ourselves with some delicious ice cream at Hansen’s in Wilmot, Jerry took the Elan home with him. I got some of my storage back. Enough to move things around and make all the toys fit. And now Jerry has something to keep him busy for several years. I think you will now be getting some good technical articles from Jerry as he learns different methods for dealing with RUST. Thanks go to Steve and Sally for finding this Elan for me and going with us to pick it up. And thanks go to Jerry and Elayne
for taking over the project – Good Luck!
