Let’s take a look at a review of Mrs. Peel’s ride in the Avengers, a Lotus Elan, the S/E edition in this case.
R&T notes that “The basic design of the Elan is now five years old…and it still is one of the most advanced cars of our time…the Elan does almost everything most of the world’s car builders cannot quite do yet.” Yes, it was a brilliant design, with its ultra-stiff backbone frame that allowed its four wheel independent suspension to work at its maximum potential. It was the closest thing to a Formula 2 race car from a few years back, but with nice accommodations, a good ride, and it even runs rather quietly.
The S/E version got a bump to 115 hp form its Cosworth DOHC head Ford 116E 1558 cc four. It also got stiffer rear shocks, a numerically lower final drive ratio, power brakes, knock off alloy wheels, radial tries and a few other minor goodies. It was essentially the definitive Elan.
The rear suspension is an adaptation of the MacPherson strut, now called the Chapman Strut. No anti-roll bars, front or rear. “Chapman’s race-car philosophy—soft springing, good damping and precise geometry—prevails to combine a remarkable ride with equally remarkable roadholding”
This was a total repudiation of the traditional British approach to sports car design, as typified by MG, Triumph and Austin-Healey, with their flexible frames, stiff springs, not-very-precise geometry and lever shocks. And this applied to Detroit too, whose approach to making their cars handle better was with stiff springs and wide tires, which worked reasonably well on a skid pad or race track, but fell apart on rougher roads. Chapman’s approach was the template for all suspension design to come, although one should note that this had generally been employed by Porsche from day one; Chapman just took the principle to the next level.
The remarkable good ride of the Elan “lends further credence to the growing belief among the R&T staff that car weight has little to do with ride, provided the designers are given enough latitude with the suspension”. Don’t tell Detroit that…
The interior was praised for being “simple, beautiful, and well detailed”; walnut had replaced the teak on the previous version for the dash. “The best way to describe the appearance is that it makes most American cars look Victorian”.
Of course, there were reliability issues with the test car, and apparently “tuning and electrical problems are common”.
In summation, “the Elan still stands in a class by itself”.
“Rather high price”… For an apples-to-oranges comparison, a base 1967 Corvette convertible started at $4240 and you could add a big-block and darn near everything else from the options list before you approached the $5610 that the Elan cost.
(source: https://www.corvsport.com/1967-corvette-options/ )
Don’t know if it was intentional, but I wonder if the Emma Peel connection had an impact on how the heavily Lotus Elan influenced, early Miata gained a reputation as a ‘chick car’.
Regardless if there was a correlation or not, don’t think it’s much of an overstatement to say that Mazda really struck gold with that one. It was like Mustang mania 25 years later.
Any British sports car that wasnt A “hairy chested” Healy was called a girls car. From the Elan ,the TR7 ,the Golf Convertable to the Miata,..l
Metalastic rubber couplings at each end of the halfshafts serve the U-joint function…
I wonder how those held up under normal use.
They were also called “rotoflex” joints, which were rubber donuts functioning as universal joints. BMW and other manufacturers use them on driveshafts, so they’ve been refined to a high level of reliability, but they did tend to give way back then.
Then and now, Lotus stands for “Lots Of Trouble, Usually Serious.”
So,did Truimphs and they cracked n broke. The road test cars front licence plate blended well did nt it. Thats why had a stick on plate on their noses ,just like E types.
Well, I learn something from CC every day! In the BMW world, we call these “giubos”. And they typically hold up very well.
This one has gone 220,000 miles and was still in pretty good shape when I pulled it just as a preventative measure recently.
(sorry, the picture didn’t post. I’ll try again.)
Pretty sure all the Alfetta-based Alfas used them too
There is an Elan in my neighborhood and I can report the owner saying, “they don’t suffer hard use very well.” They were inferior to the more robust CV joints but gotta have lightness at all cost in the Elans case.
Interestingly the Porsche 917 could never keep from breaking CVs so they used HUGE giubos and never had issues.
Now that I didn’t know. Some piece of rubber!
Hmmm, in 1967, the base 911 list price was $5,900, 5 speed upgrade $80, hmmm, the Elan listed at $5610. The 911 was more tail-happy, but so much more of a car without those troublesome rubber biscuit pseudo-CV joints. One of our professors at Case had a seductively yellow Elan, fun, intriguing, especially when it ran, but ever so frustrating with its glitches and gremlins, so we learned.
If you waited until 1970, the 911T with 5-speed, S type instrument cluster, tax, licensing, and registration was a hair under $6,900, out the door at Cleveland’s Jaguar Cleveland, then a Porsche dealer too. Expensive yes, but incredibly fun, and definitely more reliable than a used “E” type or an Elan. Maybe not as much fun as the Elan, but the 911 would be a “keeper”. My best friend, ultimately my best man, did just that, bought that 911T, and never had regrets. Later I heard that same Porsche Siren call, also without regrets, never being caught between the automotive Scylla and Charybdis, the sad, frequently frustrating fate of many British car owners.
I still long for an Elan, but like successfully avoiding a lifetime with a seductively troublesome girlfriend/spouse, I happily took a different path, one to Zuffenhausen and its progeny. Many miles of smiles have happened over the years, and definitely no regrets.
So many of us looked at these sweet Elan morsels, but then chose as an alternative choice, a tasty German Eclair, so to speak, a Porsche not an Elan.
Whenever I saw the late Diana Rigg in whatever performance she was in, her Elan would always come to mind along with sweet memories of her brilliant, and delightful nude scene in performance of the theatrical production of Heloise and Abelard in one of London’s West End theatres during the summer of 1970. That was also a treat for a lifetime.
No doubt a 911 was a better choice for the long haul, and overall. There’s a reason why Porsches outsold Lotus by a huge margin.
Right. Porsches usually started and ran. Might have a lot to do with it!
Of course the 911 was more reliable. It was built in mass-production by a company with heavily serious engineering credentials. The Lotus was the product of a very talented London lad who was not especially serious (with other’s money) and the car could literally be bought in pieces, for assembly at home. In that sense, there’s no comparison.
However, the Lotus is prettier, and with less capacity and four cylinders was (or could be) just as fast, and besides, was surely the cooler option. The Porsche came to suffer from being a haemorroid car – that is, every asshole gets one in the end.
In the Lotus, you paid more for less, in every way. But I reckon you got more, all of which was intangible.
Lotus – Frangibly but Intangibly Good.
I read that Colin Chapman once said ” A racing car only has to last long enough to win the race”. Sadly he passed that idea onto s road cars… Your right ,the Lotus was a child from the British “cottage ” sports car industry with the standard problems ,which is part of the fun of ownership,not from a mass production line .
One cool looking ride! Inspiration for “Miata”?
Mazda openly admitted to being inspired by the Elan when creating the Miata. The question was what if they could essentially build an Elan to Mazda standards of quality and reliability. They did.
Which in turn inspired Lotus to make the new Elan. Too bad it was such a flop.
Mazda engineers even recorded the whine from an MGB gearbox to add to the Britishness. I owned a Spitfire 1500 years ago then a Miata . They sounded both the same. That single rail gearbox whine.
Where is page 41?
Oops; I did it again. It’s there now.
Inflation adjusted close to $50k. Pretty impossible to imagine how that could have been
justified back in the day, even if reliability had been stellar. Lovely though.
R&T used to run owner’s surveys. The Elan set their all time record for the most things more than 10% of owners had trouble with. Their report said if a component could fail two different ways, it did:
-starters that would not engage/starters that would not disengage.
-headlights that would not go up/headlights that would not go down, and one owner that reported his headlights would go up OK, but, when he pulled a hill, the lights would slowly sink into the fenders.
R&T’s owner survey of the first year Omnirizon came close to breaking the Elan’s record, but I think it fell slightly short.
… and one owner that reported his headlights would go up OK, but, when he pulled a hill, the lights would slowly sink into the fenders.
That would be because the headlights were held up by engine vacuum, and when you pull a hill, you have less vacuum. At some point Lotus switched to headlights held up by spring tension and down by vacuum.
Today, Elans are a bargain compared to Porsches and even Corvettes $50,000 will get you the best Elan out there. Your reward will be the best handling sport car out there and also one of the smallest. For once in your life you need to drive a car for the shear fun of it.
“Chapman’s race-car philosophy—soft springing, good damping and precise geometry—prevails to combine a remarkable ride with equally remarkable roadholding”
Can we please inform today’s manufacturers of this? I’m tired of sedans having a rock solid ride because they’re trying to maintain sports sedan credibility. I’ve never driven an Elan but late 70s BMWs proved a compliant comfortable ride is compatible with precise, confidence -boosting high -speed handling.
You need to shop where they make drivers cars that drive properly and BMW is not that shop
The engine was clearly NOT a Cosworth head on a Ford short-block.
The Ford short-block was true enough. Harry Mundy, (former chief designer of Coventry-Climax) Richard Ansdale, and Steve Sanville, not Cosworth, developed the cylinder head.
Its the same cylinder head used on the Lotus Cortina in fact most of the Elan was used on the hotrod Cortina and vice versa.
Such a desirable device, though perhaps more to borrow than own. I’ve never heard even the most biased booster of them allow that an Elan “properly set up” – that most irritating of marque-loving phrases – can be driven straight through Africa or somesuch.
The Mx-5 did quite superb job of imitating it, and is arguably the better-looking (though neither are super-special in that regard, both being very nice but no more). At Last, An Elan That Gets There, the slogan could’ve been, and it rightly sold by the dozen a minute on that basis.
I’d dearly love a drive of one. The suspension tune is so enticing, and, as stated, is the genesis of all good suspension tuning as the world slowly “got the French way of wearing suspenders for real roads: low rate springs, high-rate dampers, good geometry even on simple systems, and sharp, light steering. In this miniature form, it sounds in its effect like a delicacy good enough to eat. I’m not entirely convinced, though, that Porsche could be said to have led with this, mainly because I’ve never once heard praise for a Porsche’s ride, but then, their real-road race results might bely this.
Talking of the real world, these things are just tiny when out in it. At 6’1” and 200-odd lbs, I suspect I’d need one for each foot in that real world, but one can dream.
I’m not sure Mazda’s brilliance in copying the Elan to create the MX-5 can be overstated. A stroke of genius might sum it up well. Not only was the Miata a reliable version of the Elan, it was affordable, too.
I wonder if anyone has ever done a side-by-side comparison of an Elan and a Miata. That would be an interesting read.
mainly because I’ve never once heard praise for a Porsche’s ride,
How curious, as that is generally what I remember most about Porsche 356 reviews. The Speedster review we had here a while back doesn’t go into that at great length, as the Speedster had a firmer ride than the regular 356s. But the reviewer notes “the Speedster is slightly firm on a very good road surface and scarcely different on the very worst surface.”
That might not sound like lavish praise unless one reads that properly: How many traditional sports (or any cars) rode essentially equally on the very good and the very worst surfaces? Only those with a very rigid body structure and a relatively supple four wheel independent suspension.
This concept, which the French took to delicious if sometimes amusing extremes after the war, was pioneered in the Germanic-speaking realm during the 1920s and ’30s. The key was your nemesis, the swing axle rear suspension, which along with efforts to improve frame/body rigidity and IFS resulted in cars that were a revolution compared the horse-wagon suspended cars of the early era. And I’m not talking about just rear-engine cars; many front engine RWD brands in that part of the world adopted this approach (Mercedes being just one prominent exponent).
The result was one of the key milestones in automotive development; really the first “modern” cars in terms of suspension.
The Porsche 356 was not conceived and designed to be the typical “sports car”; it was designed to be a compact 2+2 coupe or convertible that would be totally suitable as ones’ sole car and utterly suitable for every condition one might encounter n that part of the world. The convertible was not a “roadster”, but with a very plush and well insulated cabriolet roof and roll-up windows. The Speedster was an American invention, by the importer Max Hoffman, because Americans could afford more than one car.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/vintage-reviews/vintage-sci-review-1956-porsche-speedster-1600-one-of-the-most-significant-technical-accomplishments-of-our-time/
Where this quality of the 356 is more extensively noted is in more recent reviews of it, because invariably the reviewer will note how much more “modern” it rides over all surfaces compared to other sports cars from its era.
All correct.
What I had in mind is that the reviews, new or old, of the Elan always but always mention the ride, and I have the (possibly incorrect) impression that it’s practically normal-car good, not just for a sportscar. And in that sense, that very fine damping and poise of many French machines, even when heeled over to angles of amusement, is something Porsche or German cars generally aren’t associated with. But I absolutely take your point that Porsche etc led the path to suspensions that might allow this development.
Sadly, it’s been years since I’ve been in any modern that even remotely approaches that feel. Maybe some of the posh air-suspended ones do: other wise, we’re all in hard-bottomed sports-tuned cars now.
I have known two people who owned Elans. The first was in the 70s, a woman in my office had one. Our office was in downtown Toronto so no one drove to work so I never saw it. She was an attractive woman in her thirties, so a bit like a Mrs Peel. She was from England and very good at her job, which was computer programming. I now realize it was quite an expensive car for her.
The second one was an older guy I also worked with a few years later. He had a project car that needed the rusted frame replaced. When I knew him he had owned it for a while, and he never seemed to make any progress. When he retired he moved to the west coast and sold the project. He was not the right person to take on this sort of project.
Its true that the 911 if that time is better built and a better tourer, especially for the spouses. But for sheer pleasure of driving they are miles apart, once you have driven a good Elan, all contemporary cars feel outdated. And its not about power, its delicateness of taking curves is great.
Read the opinion of Gordon Murray on the Elan, he knows.
Regarding the MX5, they certainly made and make a great car, its delicate, but in comparison to its contemporary competition I feel it is more like a sporty MG B.
The backbone frame is lovely if you never crash. Then you might wonder why a manufacturer would ever design a car in such a dangerous manner.
The car is from 1962, the GRP body is safer that most of the Elans competition at that time.
Rumor–until I can find the source(s) to prove otherwise: The Elan wasn’t conceived to have a backbone, formed-sheet-steel chassis. It was originally intended to be a fiberglass “unibody”. At some point, the engineers needed a convenient way to roll the engine, suspension, transmission, etc. around the premises; they cobbled-together a backbone as a temporary solution. The “temporary” backbone worked so well the car was produced with it.
Just like the infamous GM “X” frames of the late-’50s/early ’60s (later than that for the Riviera), the backbone frame doesn’t do much for side-impacts. GM reinforced the body sides to supposedly make-up for the lack of frame on the sides of the passenger compartment.
Unlike the GM “X” frame cars, at least the Lotus body-sides don’t rot-out, leaving no structural integrity.
OTOH, I’m told that Europas have problems with the backbone rusting out; at least one company made/makes a replacement backbone with additional rust-proofing. I suppose the Elan had similar rust issues, but I haven’t heard complaints of that.