Titbit of info

[dickendoe]

Hi

unsure if I can post on this board, was not part of the team (I did hand spanners to people working on the Esprit HC for my summer hols once!).

Anyway, my father worked at the factory and I was telling him about my Elan. We got talking about the problems with making it and the costs blow out etc. He said he recalls the M90 being designed as a collaboration between the engineers and the designers, so it was a more balanced project, they knew what it would take to make it and fettled the styling to work around the mechanicals.

As he recalls it the M100 was presented to the senior team as a pretty much fully worked up styling job, clay modelled and so on, and was an instant hit, so they approved the design and started working out how to make it. The end result was very true to the design, but to get there they had to engineer around a few issues, and the final design needed more panels and brackets than suited a cheaper production run, so pushing up costs in lots of areas.

His response was interesting though, if I had bought an Esprit I know I would have been in for a lecture about everything that goes wrong with them, and to do about a hundred safety checks. As it is an Elan he basically said great car, you could drive it to the shops or a 1000kms up the coast and be pretty happy you would make it there safely....clearly he has forgotten the front brakes!

Cheers

[hatters]

So your Dad saw the Elan as a reliable car compared to the Esprit then, that's good coming from someone who was there during the manufacturing process

[HJ2]

Ha!

Good story and thanks for sharing