1963 Lotus Elan SI GTS (FIA Appendix K)

According to Lotus Archives, Elan S1, Chassis Number 26/0308, left Lotus Cars on 9/12/1963 and was shipped to the Ecurie Shirlee Distribution Corp. in Manhattan Beach, California. Run by the legendary character and racer, Bob Challman, Ecurie Shirlee were Lotus dealers and distributors for many years and played a major part in the success of Lotus on the West Coast. We have no further information about the Elan's history for the next few years, but imagine that a smart little British sports car in Southern California in the Sixties would have enjoyed an interesting life. We move forward to late 2009 when 26/0308 returned to the UK and was registered on 11/11/2009. It was now the property of Paul Tooms and formed part of his plans to compete in UK motorsport and the HSCC-Historic Road Sports Championship in particular. The car was entrusted to Witchampton Garage in Wimborne to be race prepared. There are box files of information regarding the car's initial build and ongoing development, obviously far too much to list here, but details of all this will be available from our Documents Office at the time of the sale, or prior to that by contacting Silverstone Auctions. Over the next four years, 26/0308 (now BPR 559A) was campaigned with unparalleled success in HSCC -Historic Road Sports-Class 'C'. In the hands of Paul Tooms it won this championship outright in 2011 and 2012 before the car was sold to Roger Waite who was also a talented 'pedaler' winning outright at Thruxton, Silverstone International, and Silverstone Finals during 2013, and winning the HRS Class 'C' in 2015. At the end of 2015, the decision was taken to sell BPR but not before all the paperwork had been brought up to date. The FIA-Historic Technical Passport was renewed (FIA Class-GTS10) and is valid until the end of 2025, and the car has a current HSCC Identity Form for 'Period F- Class C'. Now the property of Ginetta racer, Patrick Ward-Booth, BPR did not run in 2016 but was subject to a total rebuild and, once again, the history file contains all the details, but to summarise; All-steel Smirthwaite engine- built and maintained by John Smirthwaite-Less than three hours running Recently rebuilt Gearbox by Competition Transmissions Brand new genuine Lotus Chassis ( ú1,595) Body completely restored and resprayed The Elan is accompanied by the aforementioned Passports, its V5, acres of invoices, correspondence with Lotus and the DVLA, and, most importantly, lots of detailed running instructions, set-up sheets, operating instructions, lap times etc. Currently on SORN and the last MOT expired in March 2016. There is an old adage that says that