Doug,
Yes I had hoped he would want to give up the "smurfmobile" for a proper colored Lotus (BRG) but no dice he love's her. So all in all I cannot complain.
the process of events went as follows
Spurred on by a fellow lotus enthusiast (pat dennis of florida) it was suggested that I try to hunt down one of my fathers old lotus's so loving all things from the past I thought I would try to chase down his Europa, after chasing thru to the last known owner it was reported by him that car was sold to a collector in japan, after the last USA owner bottomed the car out severly over a bridge @ highly elevated speeds and did some heavy damage. So a car in Japan to far for my wallet to chase on to the M100 which my father and I owned together.
first off was the posting here on LEC, then I e-mailed with Arnie Johnson @ lotus USA and he was able to supply me with the vin which we had foolishly not hung on to.
@ this point I enlisted the help of a few friends, Walter Irvine from Skip Barber Racing school, who enlisted his friend Robert Konick formerly of HRM,
thru some great contacts that Robert had, and some internet style legwork on his part and mine, we tracked the car to the third owner in PA that was Scott (he was on this site as well). I spoke on the phone with Scott and got the skinny on the old girl and he also told me that she had moved on onto the care of another person in the upstate NY region, so quickly I pulled up the LOONY site and found her in the pictures section. I left a voice mail for the owner, while Robert was communicating with Tony Vaccaro who heads up the LOONY club and he reached out to Rick the current owner and also informed him of my quest. Later that evening I got a phone call from Rick the current owner. I actually have to say I am very happy to hear that she is in loving hands @ this time. Also that I am so pleased to see that there is a kind of an unwritten code of conduct that takes place between Lotus owners/enthusiasts involving the sharing of info personal/public and that we all recognize that generally if one of us is looking for someone or something it is usually for "good" purposes and carries no malice. Having been involved with german cars for a long time as a business, I have to tell that kind of cooperation in a group of enthusiasts is rare very rare.
Back to the Elan, So Rick the current owner has given me first right of refusal should he ever sell her but to be honest I am not holding my breath I think he is in love
, we had a great conversation which I informed him of a few things he did not know about the car (that she was a log winner for concours and had seen some autocross time and won them as well) and he had said that a roll bar was installed when he first bought it for safety purposes.
Once again thru the help of some great people and a wonderful community of owners/enthusiasts all is well
thanks
Colin
) support in the U.S & Canada. Arnie has always been a Lotus guy, great to have him back 
