The time is late summer in 1976. I'm single, unattached, with a new job and most unusually I'm earning more than I'm spending which is clearly an unnatural state for any young man. I saw a blue Elan dhc where I worked - 65000 miles and it looked beautiful on the only sunny day that summer.
Oh, I fancy that, wonder if I sold the GT6 and that old Mini ???
I start talking about Elans at work and it turns out that one of the guys there runs a Europa, and his brother had an Elan Sprint.
"why don't you come round and have a look, he's down this week-end, we're doing some work on the engine."
Now working on the engine of a 4yr old car should have been a warning, but, ah, the innocence of youth. A spin round the country and.... hey, this is all right - I want one !
But an Elan Sprint is £2000, and I can barely scrape together £1000, so I guess it's a series 2 or 3.
"Buy a fhc if you're going to use it daily, and they're cheaper so you'll get a better one"
A few weeks of Exchange & Mart, Motoring News, several wasted journeys and phone calls and then "Lotus Elan S3SE, £995, re-con this and that, etc, etc" in Motoring News.
I can even remember the guys' name, Kevin Smith, and he was a real gent. When he realised I was travelling over 100 miles, he told me there was a scrape on the car, something rattled at the rear suspension and he'd only had it 3 months - did I still want to come ?
Well, I reckon you buy what you see, and with a seller that honest you've only got yourself to blame if you buy a dud, so off I went. I looked at the car on the Saturday afternoon, bought it on the spot and went back to collect it later in the week.
Love is blind, but not for long.....
