Unique Elan shooting brake!

PHer's project comes to life

The Elan 'shooting brake'

This unique Lotus Elan +2 shooting brake is the pride and joy of a dedicated PHer and Lotus enthusiast, and as soon as we saw the pictures, we knew it was something a little bit special.

It’s taken four years to create and rather a lot of money, but its owner is refreshingly candid about the reasons behind it: “I remember the cars from when I was young and have always wanted one. Fabulous or folly, I just decided to do it”.

He approached Lotus specialist Paul Matty to do the work, who after much thought remembered the ‘Shapecraft’ Elan fastbacks based on the S1 and S2 Elans. Shapecraft are still in business creating beautiful alloy bodies for historic racing cars, and so they were selected to undertake the body build and a donor Elan was duly shipped down to their premises for the conversion work to begin.

Paint shade from an Esprit

Much of the design work was undertaken at Shapecraft, and the particular hue for the finished car was also chosen – it’s Mediterranean Blue as used on the Esprit from 1988-90.

Some of the unique features on the car include:

A unique twin-pipe horizontal silencer that required the boot floor to be remoulded
There are bespoke roof trusses to support the Bentley Arnage grade roof lining. Between the lining and the roof, Matty packed in plenty of noise insulation, as he did in the door and the rear panels. The car is now described as “incredibly quiet – unlike a standard +2”.
A special alloy foam filled fuel tank fitted in the new rear boot floor.
Tailgate screen is glass
Additional strengthening has been applied to maintain the rigidity of the body. A new sub-chassis locates the two rear chassis towers and is hidden by the trim.
Burr walnut rear quarter cabinets complete with hip flask and glasses!
The tailgate has two rear facing red lights to warn approaching traffic. It also has a full wash/wipe mechanism controlled from the dashboard.
The windows are glass, not Perspex. At huge expense new patterns were created to make the glass from. The rear screen is heated and all the glass tinted.
The front seats have been made from Lotus Elite frames and then individually trimmed in magnolia leather as has the rest of the interior. Even the seat belts have been re-webbed in blue fabric to match the exterior.
A new dashboard has been fitted that was made at the same time as the rear cabinets so the veneer matched. The standard Phillips Turnlock radio has been converted to FM and an iPod connection has been installed.
The headlamps have been converted from vacuum to electric operation.

Seats trimmed with new leather

Matty is quoting an overall weight of 857kg as opposed to 946kg for a standard Elan +2 130/5, and reckons there’s 32 cubic feet of luggage space with the rear seat folded down.

We reckon the finished article is a credit to all involved. And who knows, maybe it’s given Hethel a few ideas for the future…

http://www.paulmattysportscars.co.uk/

http://www.shapecraft.com/