An Elan on Skis?
I took the X-Type to Sainsburys this afternoon and the temperature gauge was showing minus eight. Don’t ask me what that is in old money, as I don’t do Fahrenheit.
It was probably lucky that I took the Jaguar as someone had got themselves stuck and needed a tow off the snow-covered grass. Not that the car would have been any good at it, as it wasn’t getting any grip on the ice, but I did have a tow rope, which meant that someone else in a Nissan Terrano could do the honours and remove the BMW.
Since the weather has got bad I’ve been alternating the two cars; the Jaguar X-Type and the Lotus Elan.
These pictures show the conditions and a couple of pictures to prove the Elan got safely to Newmarket and back.
By preference, I’d take the Elan every time on this sort of surface. Especially as the lane to the main road into Newmarket, hasn’t been gritted at all and is a fairly steep incline down and then up both ways. It’s also very much single track as the photo shows and you need to go slowly to avoid hitting someone going the other way, as hedges and a couple of bends make the road dangerous. In the last eighteen years, that I have lived in this house, I reckon that there have been about one serious accident a year. I’ve been hit thrice; by the postie, a lady who didn’t get over at all and a lunatic.
Today, I took the Lotus in with the top down and perhaps that was just too ambitious, despite the fact I was well wrapped up. What the car needs is a proper tonneau cover!
All of this shows, that if you take a modern car like the X-Type with lots of clever electronics and anti-lock braking, it is no better than a car which was designed with proper dynamics in the first place.
I should say that I’ve driven cars a lot worse on snow and ice than the Jaguar, but good dynamics are the key to everything, when it comes to roadholding on surfaces, that are good, bad or just plain terrible!
An Elan and an Escort Cosworth
This tale happened many years ago, probably in about 1997 or so.
I had to go and visit a client at Motherwell just outside Glasgow and decided that the best way to do the journey would be to take the Elan up the A1 and then take the A66 across to the M6. If you don’t know the A66 it is now mostly dual-carriageway road, fairly straight and rolls up and down the hills. In those days, it didn’t have as much fast road, but it was still a good road for a burn-up.
I got to Scotch Corner at about seven in the morning and I remember it was warm and sunny, so the top was down and I’d intended to drive in a relaxed manner all the way to Penrith, at or around the legal limit. A few miles from the A1, an Escort Cosworth appeared alongside me on the road. These rather rare cars were instantly recognisable by their large rear spoilers.
The driver who looked to be in his late teens drove alongside me for a few hundred metres honking his horn and gesticulating at me. He’d obviously nicked the car, as no-one his age could have afforded the insurance. I suspected that he wanted to have a race.
He then pushed off showing the acceleration of the car. I thought that was that, but it wasn’t! He then slowed and braked in front of me.
So I thought that the best thing to do was get out of here!
Luckily he missed a gear as I went past and I booted it all the way to about a hundred and thirty or more. After a few miles, there was a couple of bends and to say he was not a good driver was an understatement, as he fell behind. I think luckily that he wasn’t very brave, as he seemed to be receding on the straight bits too. After the last bend there was a Little Chef to the right, so I said that was enough and pulled through the gap in the central reservation and hid behind the cafe. I heard him going through very fast!
After breakfast, I continued on my way and after a mile or so, there was some roadworks where they were dualling the road. The Escort had been stopped by the Police and there was a heated discussion going on. As I drove through, the kid pointed at me in a very agitated way. He was shouting a lot too, as if to say it was all my fault. But the Police were having nothing of it and then I saw him being hit with a truncheon and bundled into the Police Car.
I never heard anything more of it.
But it was certainly the fastest, I have ever driven the Elan.
What Elans are for!
Although the Elan limped home from Holland on Sunday, it is now fit and very well. Should it be he, she or it? Incidentally, the refitting of the gear-box cable, replacement of two instrument panel lights, a quick check on all wearable parts and a very good valet cost just £84. Perhaps a very good reason to buy an old Lotus Elan.
Last night, I wanted to go to London to do some shopping and have supper with my middle son. My youngest son, wanted a car, so he needed the Jaguar, so despite the forecast of rain, I took the Elan and parked it in Blackhorse Road for the Underground. As an aside here, if they want to encourage people to use public transport, why do they still charge £3.50 to use the car-park at the station at all times of the day? That applies even if you park at five in the afternoon, when the car-park is half-empty.
I was raining hard, but the M11 wasn’t that busy, so I did push it a bit. But there wasn’t really any standing water, so the journey was safe. But does every car handle as nimbly and well in the rain? Visibility is very good and the wipers create a clear screen, although perhaps not quite as clear on the Jaguar. But then the car is a twenty-year-old design! An hour after leaving home and I was in the car park at Blackhorse Road.
The return journey was clear and without incident. I was also listening to the football on the radio in the car. Not the original, I should say, that wasn’t the best because of the plastic body, but a new SONY, that seems to work well in all conditions. I can even get BBC Radio 5 on the other side of the North Sea in Holland.
I may have had my problems in the last year, but if I want to feel really alive and get a lift, I just get in the Elan and drive.
That’s Elans they are for!
Fast Train to Rotterdam and Den Haag
It has just been announced that Thalys is now running fast through to Amsterdam. So I looked up and see if I could book from Ebbsfleet to Rotterdam for a reasonable price at a reasonable speed. I actually would go to Den Haag, but couldn’t find that on the Eurostar web site. Or should I say, I could find it, but I couldn’t book it!
In mid-January, I have found that I could do the trip in three hours and forty-seven minutes for a return cost of £127.50 with a credit charge of £3.
So how does that compare to easyJet?
easyJet on the same days costs £47.98 with a charge of £8 for the credit card.
The parking at Ebbsfleet and Stansted are about the same and I suspect you can get them for about £70, with perhaps an extra tenner for diesel for Ebbsfleet. And then you have the trains at the other end, which would both be just a few Euros.
As to time, the flight takes about five hours door-to-door and the train takes about six and a half.
So is it a no-brainer to take the plane?
No! I hate airports and all of the ridiculous rules. Not all are security too!
So it is perhaps why I actually prefer to take the boat. The last trip, I used Stena from Harwich and because I had a problem with the Lotus, I came back the same way. It is not really such a long trip in terms of time, as I would do Harwich-Hook overnight. But then coming back, you have the annoying delay, whilst they keep you on board, so you might have breakfast. I don’t, as their offerings are not gluten-free!
I normally go over using Norfolk Line from Dover to Dunkirk, which usually takes about eight hours door-to-door. That may be a lot slower, but I can fill the car with all the goodies that expats can’t get in Holland. And I can also take my Brompton!
Cost of the ferry is usually about £60 with perhaps about the same amount for diesel. I know that calculating the cost of motoring on the fuel cost is not valid, but it is the way we always add it up!
So perhaps, the easiest and most relaxing way is to drive via Dover. At least you get a nice break on the boat and can listen to BBC Radio 5 Live all of the way. And it’s only three hours slower than the plane.
Limping There and Back
As I drove to get the boat at Harwich, the Lotus Elan developed a gearbox fault. What it meant was that I only had second, fourth and reverse gears.
I was faced with a dilemma, in that did I drive back home and get the Jaguar or did I continue. To complicate matters, I was also going to see Ipswich play Peterborough, so I’d miss the match, if I changed cars.
So I continued.
It now should be said, that the engine of the Lotus can drive the car happily in second and fourth, so without any mishaps, I managed to drive from Ipswich to Harwich carefully at about fifty-five. I had dreaded getting on the boat, as on some ferries, you have to drive up a steep ramp, but in this case it was almost level, as they weren’t using the upper decks at all. I only had a few kilometres to go on the other side, so it was a chance worth taking.
I did check in with a friendly forum called Lotus Elan Central and this identified the problem as a gear cable. So I didn’t need to get any serious help in Holland and just drove back to the boat last night.
It was then a quiet drive home through the villages on a getting-better-sort of Sunday. Weather wise that is.
The question that has to be asked is, how many performance cars could have limped home so successfully? As a point here, my 2.2 litre diesel Jaguar always needs to start in first, as it has nowhere near the power range of the Lotus.
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.
Some Lotus Elan Pictures
This is really to test out how the gallery in WordPress works.
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- In Blackpool
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- Lotus Evora on Test
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- The Hague
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- A Gazelle and a Hippo
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- The Hague
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- Travelling in Style
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- A Short Car
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- In Amsterdam
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- Waiting for the Ferry
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- Altenberg
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- At the Trafford Centre
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- Freshly Cleaned
It seems to work fairly well although there are the usual inconsistencies that programmers tend to create. I’m not saying I’m any better, but I work hard to have a philosophy that is the same everywhere.
Sometimes I fail, but I usually get there in the end.
But take here. I’m trying to get the space under the picture exact, so that the gallery fits in nicely. But I’m having trouble. It should be easy! My father, a printer, who was a stickler for layout would not have been amused.
The Coeliac Travel Problem
It was a two and a half hour journey of 155 miles home. But at least I had the top down on the Lotus, which is a great way to drive under the stars. Sadly, I didn’t see any meteorites.
I hadn’t eaten since lunch before I left and except for a fruit bar, I didn’t eat anything on the way back. I generally don’t stop in motorway service stations, as it means putting up and taking down the hood. Not that this is a problem, as it is much quicker, than those fancy electric ones you now get on convertibles, but I am just lazy.
But all of the garages on the A14 had shut their shops, so I got home hungry.
So I went to bed after a small whisky and a bag of crisps.
I should have planned better, but it is a real problem to find sensible gluten-free food to eat on the go. Especially as my fridge that plugs into the car has turned itself into just an insulated box!
A Late Flowering
I had thought that when I left Antwerp the roads would be a lot clearer than other Friday nights, when I’d done this trip. They were but they were still crowded.
I should say that the main route from Antwerp to Ostend is to take the road to Gent and then the E40 motorway to Ostend. It is not as quick as it should be and sometimes is blocked either by accidents or just too much traffic. So I prefer to take the E34 towards Brugge and then cut down the N44 at Maldegem. It’s probably a few kilometres further, but on most days it is quicker and probably a lot safer. When coming direct from Holland, I also cut across from Breda and through the Liefkenshoek tunnel. That route is usually traffic-free as the tunnel costs five euro.
But within ten minutes of leaving my parking space near the station, I was on the E34 and heading towards Brugge. The weather was good, so the top was down on the Lotus and I was enjoying the rather weak evening sunshine. But the road was busy and it took me quite a few minutes to get out of the right-hand-lane with the trucks at a hundred or so kilometres per hour and into the left at a lot faster.
I often say that the Lotus Elan is the Second Best Car in the World. I did in this piece.
When you are in fast traffic it is in its element and it proves my description.
With the top down, the vision is superb in all directions and you’re never in danger of cutting anybody up, as you can use all three mirrors and even turn your head to check blind spots. I don’t want a coming together at about a hundred miles per hour or more. You don’t come out well.
When I made the left hand lane, it was either stick there with the mad Belgians in their BMWs, Mercedes and Porsches at speeds of over a hundred fifty kilometres per hour or tamely get stuck with the trucks. I chose the mad Belgians!
But I did watch all the dials; turbo boost, temperature, oil, water and fuel. They are so much more instructive than a set of anonymous lights, which generally go red for every sort of engine problem and then present you with a large bill for the technician to plug his computer into the one in your car. Incidentally, the Lotus has its own engine management computer which is as old as the car. Why can’t PCs last a bit longer? I do wonder though what will happen when one of these computers needs replacing on a classic car in say thirty years time.
At speed with the top down, there is little wind noise in the Lotus. There’s even less with the top up! Could this be because the car is actually aerodynamically clean and doesn’t create all the vortices that occur on the average car, where interior space can’t be compromised for the dynamics and you tend to end up with all sorts of wings and spoilers. Not that the interior space was minimised in the Lotus, but it was designed first and foremost as a fast and stable sports car.
And on the subject of interior space, the Lotus may be a very short car, but because it is front-wheel drive and it has been intelligently designed, it can pack a vast amount of luggage for such a small car. All of the books, maps, tools and safety equipment actually fit in the space under the hood, which because it is manual doesn’t take up half the rear of the car and add significantly to the weight. I can also get two soft cases and a Brompton bicycle in the boot.
I’ve tended to think lately that the cars acceleration is getting a lot slower than some of the modern BMWs and Mercedes, but on the road to Brugge, there are several sets of lights and she performed well. Perhaps, they have a lot more power, but they also have a lot more weight. Cars are getting obese like people!
At Maldegem, I slowed on the E44 and transferred to the main motorway before picking up pace again towards Ostend and Dunkirk. The pace was less frenetic and the road was also a lot less busy, with a lot of British registered vehicles going towards the Channel Tunnel and the ferries.
But the car finally showed it’s superb design credentials in an unusual way. There appeared to be very dark clouds over Dunkirk and it would have not been very prudent to raise the hood. Luckily, there was a handy service area and I stopped, got out the car, lifted the cover for the hood, raised and clipped it into place and drove off, all in about twenty seconds.
Try doing that in anything with an electric hood.
The Anonymous Widower 