Two Elans in the Dark
My yellow Lotus has found a friend; a red one in Holland.
What do Lotus Elans do when they meet each other?
Seriously though, the red one is a left-hand-drive example from the second series, so it’s about three years younger than mine. Note the different wheels! The newer car also has sixteen inch wheels, as opposed to my fifteen.
The World’s Greatest Cars
Top Gear is waffling on about how Lancia is the world’s greatest make of cars.
What bollocks! After all the collective noun was a rust of Lancias.
They showed a K-reg Lancia Delta Integrale and described how good it was. Perhaps it was, as that Car magazine of about that time, said that the three greatest cars were, the Porsche 9-11 Carerra 4, the Integrale and the Lotus Elan. Admittedly, they were judging them on a cross-country route rather than on the M1.
Judge those cars now nearly twenty years later.
My Elan is currently filthy, but turn up anywhere smart and you get the proper treatment. (The landlord of my local pub likes it in the road outside!) Have an argument with an oick in his BMW and you can lose him down a country lane. Show it to a real lady and she knows it’s a real car! Ask it to corner fast and you chicken out before it does!
Lotuses are like that!
Mine has done over 111,000 miles and except for those things you’d expect to replace like filters, brake shoes and the occasional exhaust pipe (one in all those years), very little has broken. A window winder motor and a sun visor for a start. And possibly a finish!
They’re like that too!
I’ll never claim the top spot, but my Lotus is the second greatest car in the world.
Caravans
According to Richard Hammond of Top Gear, 37% of all caravanners enjoy wife-swapping.
That’s probably one of the best reasons for not getting one, as I haven’t got a wife. Sadly!
But seriously! Apparently we have more caravans in the UK than anybody else! Why do people feel that the greatest pleasure comes from being stuck with your family in a small box in the pouring rain?
Perhaps most of those who own caravans are masochists!
A Number Plate for a Jaguar
I saw this number in Cambridge on Wednesday.
A Number Plate for a Jaguar
I suppose it stands for Poo’s Kat.
The Halifax Explosion
I usually read the obituaries in The Times. Even if it’s just to check that I’m still here. But then I wouldn’t be in that esteemed organ!
Today there was an obituary of Marcus Chambers. He was not a man I’d heard of, but I do remember the triumph of Andrew Cowan driving a Hillman Hunter in the 1968 London-Sydney Marathon. He was the brains behind it all. One thing that is not in the obituary was that the car was tuned to run on the very low grade petrol, that would be all that was obtainable on much of the route.
Sad to think, that such a race would not be possible today, as you just can’t drive all the way. Well not safely, as the route included Tehran and Kabul.
But what caught my eye in the obituary is the Halifax Explosion, which Marcus Chamber’s parents survived. Two thousand people died, when an ammunition ship blew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
The Halifax Explosion occurred on Thursday, December 6, 1917, when the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, was devastated by the huge detonation of the SS Mont-Blanc, a French cargo ship, fully loaded with wartime explosives, which accidentally collided with the Norwegian SS Imo in “The Narrows” section of the Halifax Harbour. About 2,000 people were killed by debris, fires, or collapsed buildings and it is estimated that over 9,000 people were injured. This is still the world’s largest man-made accidental explosion.
That was a terrible tragedy.
Expensive Toasters
I just watched last week’s Top Gear and was amused when Jeremy Clarkson showed a lot of video footage of Lamborghini Gallardos catching fire.
Can a car that is that rare (and expensive), catch fire so regularly?
Searching Google finds quite a few examples. Here’s a well documented case from the Daily Mail.
Home Safely
On this trip I took my Jaguar Estate rather than the Lotus Elan.
I’m glad I did, as I drove from Dover to home in heavy rain, thunder and a lot of lightning. Not that the Lotus is bad in that type of weather conditions, but all Elans leak a bit!
But I made Dover to home in an hour and three-quarters. Something you can’t do at any sane time of day. At least though the Dartford Crossing is free between ten at night and six in the morning, so I didn’t have to find any money.
Clarkson Rubbishes the Mercedes SL Black
Just watching the repeat of last Sunday’s Top Gear on BBC2.
Clarkson has just said that the new Mercedes SL Black is not worth five times a standard one.
He’s right. Anybody who buys the car needs his head examined. My Lotus is a hell of a lot more practical and I can’t see the Mercedes still being around in twenty years, like my little yellow friend.
The Aston Cygnet
So Aston Martin are to produce a small car based on the Toyota iQ.
Didn’t years ago, Austin produce luxurious versions of the 1100 under the name Vanden Plas? Nothing is new!
The Anonymous Widower 