The story of my 1972 Lotus Elan Sprint and other cars

A new addition (2024)

This year we bought a new (modern) car and our first venture into owning a diesel car!

It's a 2017 Alpina D5S, a petty rare model, four wheel drive with only about 270 right hand models being made. So far it's been a pleasure to drive returning over 42mpg. While it's not been the most reliable car we have ever owned it's not let us down and luckily all repairs have been carried out under warranty. There were a lot initially as the car went back to the (main) dealer after only a week but since then things have been getting better!

2023

The Elan attended the Ypres Lotus Ascension Day meet, it was fun last year in the Excel and the Elan was well suited to the narrow country lanes of Belgium but was quite hard on the cobblestone roads in some of the town centresw..

https://ypreslotusday.be

The Excel went to the Le Mans Classic this year, thanks to our friend Christophe president of our French car club, Association Bagnoles Moteurs Classiques who arranged this for us. It's the centenary year of the Le Mans race so was an amazing weekend.

https://www.lemansclassic.com/en/

Caux Retro Photobook

Just created a photobox of our memories of the Caux Retro 2018 and 2019 (still hoping the event this year is not cancelled).

The book was created thanks to a voucher from Saal Digital so many thanks to them for their kindness.

Really delighted with the book, the quality of the images and the colour is superb. The software worked well (on my Mac) and was easy to use and customise. 

A few things.. 

The quality of the book is amazing.
The perspex cover looks great!
The lay flat design works well with images spanning two pages.
The font size I used for the general text was 14pt, while it looked great in the application is too big in the printed book, 12pt or 10pt would have been better. The word spacing (kerning) would then have been better without large gaps between words when using fully justified text.

Overall thoroughly recommended, quick and easy to use  although the professional series is not cheap so better saved for very special occasions such as weddings.

https://www.saal-digital.co.uk

Caux Retro

We have now attended this multiple times starting in 2018 and more recently in 2024. It's not a big show but it's very friendly and there are a great range of different cars from across Europe. It's a two day event which includes a road rally across the region on the Saturday, with the obligatory refreshment and lunch stops and a static show in the middle of the local town, Allouville-Bellefosse on the Sunday.

http://cauxretro.com

Latest Purchases

Recently bought a red 1987 Lotus Excel SE, a bit of a project car but mechanically pretty well sorted (I hope)

Just found four amazing wheels for my Elan from Doncaster. I think these are at least 35+ years old and could have been made by Dunlop, but they look like new. Just need to decide on some tyres now. They are the 'proper' 4/12J x 13 Elan size as well rather than the wider wheels which are more easily available.

La Coupe Florio

http://www.lacoupeflorio.com

Le Retrofestival

http://www.retrofestival.fr

Swiss Classic British Car Meet