My car was built by Elva. Elva was a small producer of racing and sports cars, operating out of Bexhill in Sussex, UK. My Dad knew Frank Nichols, the boss there, back in the day. I'm Sussex born and bred, so I'm proud to race a car with these family connections!
The car is an Elva 200, being the second series of Formula Junior racer produced by Elva. The first series was the front-engined -100. My car was one of the 20-odd rear-engined -200s produced, and it was put straight onto a ship and sent to the US dealer Carl Haas (who much later ran the Indy car team, along with Paul Newman, for which Nigel Mansell drove). It is strongly believed that whilst in Carl Haas' ownership it was driven by two US racing legends, Mark Donohoe and Peter Revson; unfortunately period US race records are not good enough to categorically prove it was my car, although we keep looking!
The car resurfaced in the 90's racing in the US Historic race scene, it was reimported to the UK, restored and raced in the early 00's by Doug Martin, I bought it from him in mid 2009.
The car is powered by an 1100cc BMC 'A'series engine, sadly we're a bit down on horsepower against the Ford-powered cars I race against. 'Upside-down' VW beetle gearbox, drum brakes, and narrow crossply tyres all make life quite interesting...
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