Classic Car Mart visits San Francisco and gets the chance to drive three very special Lotuses

Temperatures scorch towards 40 degrees C, immaculate boutiques and air-conditioned fast food joints line the streets and traffic sits at 55mph along the four-way highway nearby. Pleasanton, California – seemingly a suburban film set of the American Dream – is not your typical location for a British classic car specialist, but, then, neither is Classic Cars Ltd your typical classic car dealer.

‘Oh, sure, we do the British stuff,’ says owner Paul Wankle, a typically affable, outgoing Californian, ‘but there’s American, Italian, German, French. You name it!’

Check out his website and you’ll waste hours trawling through the photos, pouring over the incredibly detailed listings and willing the exchange rate back towards two-to-one. Turn up at the immaculate showroom and you’ll fi nd yourself delayed too, double-taking at such eclectic delights as a ’60s Ford Mustang, an ’80s Porsche 911, a Morris Minor van, even a Smart Fortwo. Today, we’re here to see a trio of Lotus sports cars: a Super Seven, an Elan and a Mk I Lotus Cortina.

‘I got the Seven and the Elan first,’ says Paul. ‘Both happened to be 1965 model years, so when I found this 1965 Lotus Cortina for sale, I just had to have it to complete the set.’

COR-TINA!
Amazingly, Paul is happy to not only bring his Brit trio out to play, but also more than happy for us to drive each of them.

It’s the Lotus Cortina I get my hands on first. It is immaculate, entirely perfect in every detail and prepared with the kind of attention to detail you’d usually find at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.

‘The last owner bought it back in 1980 after a fairly mild engine fire,’ explains Paul. ‘He was an engineer and really went to town on it with a full frame-off restoration. He took great care to source all the correct period parts and, when he just couldn’t find them, improvised in his garage – just look at the wiring loom, it’s all entirely home-made.’

Based up in British Columbia, Canada, the previous owner spent the next 23 – twenty three! – years slowing finessing the Mk I Cortina until it was so perfect he could finesse no more. The fun, it seems, was in the restoring, not the driving – it’s covered just 1500 miles since. Paul saw it for sale, headed up to see it and, because of terrible weather, bought it without a test drive.

‘I took a chance,’ he admits, ‘but it was obviously an expert job, and I’m certainly not disappointed now.’

After a boat, a trailer and a trip across the border, the Lotus Cortina finally landed at its new, sunnier home in Pleasanton. Right now, it’s gleaming in front of me. The underside is as immaculate as the bodywork, the engine bay showroom fresh, the interior timewarp perfect. Climb in and sunshine floods through the windscreen, and the visibility – thanks to those spindly thin pillars – feels entirely unblinkered after the modern rental I’ve just stepped out of.

Snuggle into the comfortable seats, fire the engine – it barks with a thick, gurgly rort – grip the thin wooden three-spoke wheel and I’m away. At low speeds the steering wheel feels incredibly fragile, as if even moderate exertion will snap it like a clothes peg. Sure enough, Paul cautions that I grip it only at the spokes during manoeuvring!

On the move the helm gets into more of a flow and I fall into a rhythm with the gearbox’s easy snick, after feeling initially petrified to be driving something so unmolested. Fluids warmed, I work the accelerator harder and the Cortina surges forward. Hmm, feels pokier than the last one I drove.

‘It’s had quite a lot of work under there,’ says Paul. ‘There’s a ported and flowed stage two big valve head, Kenny Harman cams, Hepolite Powermax forged pistons with chrome rings, plus stress relieved and shot-peened rods, and a lightened flywheel.’ It’s a beautiful, beautiful piece of kit – easy to chuck around and fun to drive, but so utterly perfect you can’t quite believe it. Fools the locals too. ‘Nice car! What is it, a Mercedes?’ shouts a passerby, foxed by the star-like rear light clusters.

SEVENTH HEAVEN
The Seven was always going to fall short with an opening act like the Cortina, and, sure enough, it, well, falls short. Not that it isn’t a nice car, it’s just that it needs a little work, as Paul readily admits.

‘When I bought it, the previous owner didn’t go out of his way to point out the faults,’ he laughs. ‘It’s easy stuff to fix, but it’s not right just at the moment.’

With SUVs and hardworking trucks lumbering around, it feels even more peculiar than normal to slip into the Seven, stick your legs straight out in front of you and join the flow of traffic that looms above. You just feel so incredibly exposed. Would these Starbucks-supping drivers even notice if they ran straight over you? I doubt it. And, right now, that feels like a real possibility – I just can’t get my clunky trainers to gel with the tight pedal box. So I clamber out, remove my socks and shoes, then give it another go, chasing Paul who’s working the Elan hard up in front.

Having direct contact with the pedals makes things briefly better, but as the drivetrain gains temperature, so do the lower reaches of the cockpit, and I’m soon dancing over the pedals like Michael Flatley walking on hot coals. Worse, those little niggles Paul alluded to aren’t helping matters – the rear shocks feel way too hard, so the back end skips and hops alarmingly, and I lock the over-eager front brakes like an F1 driver overstretching myself on a qualifying lap.

Still, at least the steering’s absolutely spot on (direct, pointy, intimately feelsome) and the 1.6-litre engine pulls the featherweight Seven along with terrifying fizz. Paul pulls over in the Elan, calm and collected, while I tumble out of the Seven with scorched soles and a hairstyle that could’ve been honed in a wind tunnel. While I recover, he relays the Seven’s colourful history, something he’s painstakingly pieced back together with a little help from Lotus Archives’ Andy Graham.

‘The car was delivered to the US unpainted and sold to Dutchess Autos in New York in October, 1965,’ he explains. ‘It was originally fitted with a Cosworth engine, and, over the years, it somehow got confused with another car that went to Spain. So for a time the registration documents had the wrong numbers on them, until the previous owner did some research and had the errors corrected.’ Its last refresh came at the hands of its previous owner, and was extensive.

First the car was taken down to a bare chassis, the glassfibre mudguards and nose were replaced, and the entire car was re-skinned in aluminium. In went an Ivy Racing 1600cc cross-flow engine, a Cortina Mk II transmission and an MGB rear end, plus Carrera shocks and springs. It’s clearly a very solid basis for a weekend toy or track car.

SAN FRAN ELAN
Altogether easier to drive is the Elan. Originally delivered to the US east coast back in 1965, it headed to California in the early ’70s when the owner of a classic car sales and restoration outfit bought it as his daily driver. A successful Sports Car Club of America racer, he later gave the Elan a thorough refresh and used it for several long distance Lotus club drives and events.

The Elan’s history file even has a note from the owner. ‘This car represents the ultimate street restoration,’ it reads. ‘The goal has been to create a sports car with unusual reliability combined with superb handling and performance. This car is extremely well sorted and I would trust it on a drive cross country and back. It is a pleasure to drive, quiet, very fast and with flat stable handling and wonderful acceleration.’

Later owned by a San Francisco-based psychiatrist, it went through another mechanical and cosmetic restoration at a leading Lotus specialist. Improvements included the replacement of the original chassis with a Spyder center backbone unit for improved strength and durability. The Elan also received a total rebuild of major components including the engine, transmission, rear end and all other major systems.

The Minilite copy wheels were ditched for original replacements, while a new soft top and a full tonneau cover topped off the exterior enhancements. A new exotic wood dashboard was also custom made and fitted while the wiring harness was being replaced.

As ever, the Elan’s a delicate, glassfibre-based car that needs to be treated with care. ‘Don’t push on the seat backs, the A-pillars or on the doors when you get in and out,’ pleads Paul. ‘If you have to lean on anything, lean on the seat bases and the centre console.’

Out on the road it’s a gem. The 1.6-litre twin cam is, of course, effectively the same unit I’ve just experienced in the Cortina, but with the roof down that rorty soundtrack is amplified to even more addictive levels. The throttle response is also better than the Cortina’s, and it pulls more keenly from down low, while the gearshift has a shorter throw, making the changes feel punchier and more direct. The steering – always a Lotus high point – is equally impressive, weighting up with real precision when you commit to the bends. You instinctively push the Elan harder than the other two because everything just gels so quickly. Not so good is the overly jittery ride and the narrow footwell that – here we go again – demands I remove my right shoe to properly operate brake and accelerator. But what a blast!

IN THE END
Back at Classic Cars HQ I feel exhilarated to have driven such a special trio of cars, and wondering which I’d soonest drive home. Much as I like it, I’ll dismiss the Super Seven first. It’s really a track car and, after all, the set-up isn’t quite there. The Lotus Cortina I love, but it’s a really a museum piece, a machine so perfect that I’d feel too scared to use it, and that, for me, is the whole point of classic motoring.

No, it’s the Elan that’s the best all-rounder, combining the most appealing parts of both Cortina and Seven. Extremely well presented – but not so fanatically perfect as to invite caution – it combines a slightly sprightlier feeling twin cam engine than the Cortina with the kind of agile chassis and soft-top body that Seven owners find so rewarding – and all with a touch more practicality.

Out here in California, the Elan makes a pretty ideal daily driver. If only that exchange rate would hit two-for-one again.

SPECIAL THANKS:
Classic Cars Ltd Paul Wankle is a petrolhead through and through. He has owned literally hundreds of cars and loves track days – he’s spent countless hours on various American circuits in a wide variety of Lotuses, BMWs and Minis. He’s even raced Formula Fords.

Paul’s a motorsport fan too, with a strong interest in both modern and classic racers. That’s taken him everywhere from the comparatively local Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, to our own Goodwood Revival and even several visits to the Monaco Grand Prix.

He set up Classic Cars Ltd 15 years ago, and today it still occupies the same Pleasanton premises selling sports, high performance and what Paul calls ‘unique vehicles’ – cars like the mad Lotus-based one-off track car he’s just bought.

More dangerously, if you do find yourself dithering online over any of his stock, he’s got years of experience shipping cars worldwide. Uh oh.

Published in the March 2010 issue of Classic Car Mart.

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