The Elan came home in 1989. I was 31. I had no idea what I had bought.
The car is a 1965 S2. It has been driven, in 36 years of ownership, approximately 41,000 miles. That is a low number. It is the right number. The car spent four years off the road for a chassis swap in the early 2000s, and another two years for a complete electrical re-wire that I will not, under any circumstances, describe in this magazine.
What an Elan teaches you about wrenching, if you let it, is patience. The fasteners are small. The threads are old. The wiring is original and the wiring is wrong. The carbs need to be balanced after every other long drive. The brakes are not the brakes of a modern car and the brakes will never be the brakes of a modern car and you should drive accordingly.
What an Elan teaches you, if you let it, is that the car is the chassis and the engine is a passenger. There is no car that I have ever driven, including cars with three times the horsepower and 50 years of additional engineering, that turns into a corner like this car does. The Emira is a marvel. It does not turn into a corner like an Elan.
I will be at LUG 2026 in Salt Lake City. The Elan will not be. The Elan does not do interstate.
