I'm Back, and I have the Blues

[Hegg]

Greetings everyone!

I just recently re-obtained my Pacific Blue Elan this week and I'm happy as a tornado in a trailer park! For those that remember me, I sold my car 3 years ago to fund a new Evora. Of all the Lotus cars I've had, the Elan was the one I regret selling the most. It is such a shame that Lotus weren't able to continue making the car because it really is one of the best all around cars ever made. On the other hand, it makes one feel quite special to own one since - in the US at least - you're one of the 550 privileged few to do so.



I am the 3rd, 5th, and 7th owner of this car and hopefully this time I've learned my lesson to keep it! The last owner has taken extremely good care of the car and has allowed it to stay on the road and in top condition. You would never know that the car is approaching 25 years of age, even with just under 100k miles. It now joins the stable with my Esprit S4 in a 1-of-4 color, Bugatti Blue.

I hope to have the time to be active in the community once again. One of my favorite memories was organizing the massive overseas timing belt group buy since the parts over here were (at the time) significantly less expensive. The Elan owners are half of what make owning an Elan so great. So many of you have put forth many contributions to the ownership experience and to keep these cars on the road, from tail lights to engine hoses. In my ideal future, I hope to start the hard top discussion once again and see if we can make it happen for us US folks. I also think that we could all benefit from a properly sized wheel that closely mimics the original design (likely the S2 design, since the original is quite unique).

Anyway, I'm just stopping by to say hi and hope to see y'all around!

A few more pics can be seen at:
https://plus.google.com/photos/108926298943475582930/albums/5915481950005087425?authkey=CN6L7eT_7vaoMg

[Elanlover]

Well done and congrats!

I've always said that the Elan has been the most fun I've ever had in the FRONT SEAT of a car.

[Rusty Wishbone]

Welcome back.

I've just bought myself a hardtop for my Elan, something that I think is beneficial through the winter here in the UK. I don't know how many were made (any ideas, anyone?), but they are scarce. I was going to try and fabricate one from an old MGF hardtop since I prefer its shape, but I'm not sure that I will get around to that. Incidentally, the moulds for the hardtop still exist here in the UK, if you are interested in arranging for a few to be manufactured. They would probably cost about £1500 plus shipping.

[Hegg]

Welcome back.

I've just bought myself a hardtop for my Elan, something that I think is beneficial through the winter here in the UK. I don't know how many were made (any ideas, anyone?), but they are scarce. I was going to try and fabricate one from an old MGF hardtop since I prefer its shape, but I'm not sure that I will get around to that. Incidentally, the moulds for the hardtop still exist here in the UK, if you are interested in arranging for a few to be manufactured. They would probably cost about £1500 plus shipping.

Can you post a picture of the one you have? If I recall correctly, there were 3 or 4 aftermarket ones made for the car, but the original one rumored from Lotus never made it out. I'm curious which one you have, particularly if there are still moulds available to make more. If nothing else, getting one here that's already designed and then making moulds from that original would put us a step ahead. Seems like it was a company called NTC and an individual (Simon maybe? Kuching?) that had the most progress and success.

As I mentioned though, I've been out for several years. Maybe there's been a lot of progress that I need to catch up on!

[Rusty Wishbone]

Mine is the Kuching one. Actually, I don't think that anyone else has produced them except for Readit who made a one-off. A few companies have produced photoshopped pictures of hardtops on Elans for market testing purposes, but I am not aware of any which went any further.

I'll post some pics of mine once I have taken delivery of it.

[steve matthews]

Hegg, congrats and your original Elan too boot. Beautiful color

I should have stopped by when I was in Vegas.

Steve

[Peter_W]

Title fixed

[Peter_W]

...Can you post a picture of the one you have?...

Mine is the Kuching one...

Well, then for an example you can refer to the pictures of the Elan of The Decade...I mean "Month"

[superbad]

That looks great- was it painted? I think I saw it a couple years ago here in Denver after the previous owner bought it.

[Hegg]

Then Elan I bought? Yes it was from Denver. He had it resprayed because of the typical paint fading problems and it turned out fantastic. The color is a perfect match!

Have you had any luck with your BRG yet?

[GoM100Go]

Hello,
Yes, welcome back. I too have been hardtop yearning. I live in sunny San Diego, but don't ever take the top down. I live just 15 minutes from Mexico and I know a lot of people use the manufacturing shops there to produce costom fiberglass peices, for very reasonable prices. Just a quick search on eBay Uk shows many very affordable doner tops. I believe this is the hardtop with the exact curvature of the Elan windows. It's the windscreen area that needs modification to fit the Elan. I did buy a CD from someone on here with the instructions on modifying the MGF hardtops to fit. I definitly prefer the look of this hardtop as opposed to the kutching top build into the deck... Just need to figure how to get tops here from the Uk, I know people have large furniture items shipped for reasonable prices, but to get enough US Elan owners to get in on a mas shipping would be best.

Tops:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_trksi ... &_from=R40

Results from the modification:

viewtopic.php?f=30&t=18215

My research also led me to this MGF import outfit in Canada. It's possible these people could get us the hardtops to North America...

http://www.wedgeparts.com/mgfca.html

[Hegg]

I did see the information about the MGF conversion, but it looks like it's a bit complicated and not quite right, not to mention the difficulty of getting the hardtop here.

It's interesting that you say that you prefer that hardtop look compared to the "built-in" one that is moulded out of the existing deck lid. That was one of the first questions I was going to ask once I get around to having time to research this project once again. I see advantages going to both sides - maybe we'll have to make both!

Thanks for the info though. That's exciting that Canada might be getting the MGF in.

[Rusty Wishbone]

I've done quite a bit of thinking on the hardtop because I want one. Like James, I prefer the look of the MGF hardtop's rear window to the Kuching design, although I have not yet seen the Kuching hardtop in the metal (you know what I mean). As I have mentioned, I have now acquired a Kuching one, which I hope to take delivery of soon, so my plans to modify an MGF hardtop might not now happen.

I did buy an MGF hardtop a couple of months ago off Ebay (£153), and it would form a reasonable start-point for modification to fit the Elan. Here are my observations:

1. The MGF hardtop is about the right width, and the rear isn't a bad fit against the rear deck of the Elan.
2. The rear of the hardtop extends beyond the pivoting hood deck above the narrow piece of fixed bodywork between the hood deck & the boot. It does not obstruct the boot lid. Some people might not find the hardtop extending beyond the hood deck to be aestheically pleasing, but I think it is absolutely OK.
3. The front edge of the hardtop is completely the wrong profile for the top of the screen of the Elan, and so you would need to cut the front foot or two off the hardtop to reshape the front. This would be a lot of work.
4. The sides of the hardtop don't fit the edges od the side windows of the Elan, although they are not very far away. Re-shaping the sides would be difficult, I think, particularly when you need to fit seals in-between.
5. The hardtop's front latches are different to those of the Elan's, so you would have to fabricate your own, or buy Lotus ones at fairly high cost.
6. The hardtop's rear latches are completely different to the Elan's. I would just fiberglass the hardtop down onto the rear deck, and use the deck to anchor the rear down. So another rear deck would need to be sourced (Mine is c/o Blipi 1).
7. I have been contemplating making a fibreglass impression of the front edge of my hood and header rail to act as a mould for a new front edge that I can graft onto the front of the MGF hardtop, but I suspect that I underestimate the difficulty of doing this.
8. The MGF has a heated rear screen which could be wired up.

So you can see why the Kuching hardtop is more attractive. Basically, the central part of the MGF hardtop is perfect. The hard work is to make it the right shape where it touches the car.

[Hegg]

I finally found the original thread that I recalled reading on hardtops.

forum.lotuselancentral.com/viewtopic.php?t=5177
Edit: here's the other wikilec.9600.org/index.php/Hard_top

Sadly, most of the pictures are gone but the information is still basically the same. There are very few options and basically zero on this side of the pond.

I hope to make this - along with my other dreams - a fun and exciting project in the near future!

[superbad]

Have you had any luck with your BRG yet?

It's either put it up on Ebay or keep it. I'm kind of leaning toward keeping it. Do you know where Carl had the car painted? I know I got a quote from a place right after him, but I don't know if he ended up using those guys.

[Hegg]

Have you had any luck with your BRG yet?

It's either put it up on Ebay or keep it. I'm kind of leaning toward keeping it. Do you know where Carl had the car painted? I know I got a quote from a place right after him, but I don't know if he ended up using those guys.

I don't know the name of the place where he ended up, but I think he was indicating that he wasn't terribly happy with them. The car turned out pretty decent - there are a few overspray spots, very minor - but I think he had to fight with the guys a lot.

If you want to know for sure which place it was, I can ask him.

[superbad]

That's OK, sounds like it wouldn't be very highly recommended. It's hard to find a good place that isn't either setup to crank out insurance claims, or do work on really expensive high end cars.