There is no club devoted to the original Elan. Therefore a group of long-standing Elan enthusiasts from Club Lotus (CL) have formed the dedicated Club Lotus Elan Section (CLES).
CLES will be for the following Elan types: S1, S2, 26R, S3, S4, Sprint, +2, Plus 2 (Types 26, 36, 45 & 50). This very much builds on the wonderful legacy of the late Tim Mees and Charles Giles with the Type 26 Register, as well as Tim Wilkes’ Sprint site and Trevor Sparrow’s +2 Register, bringing them together within one entity. It will also incorporate the work of Jim Boone from the elanregistry.org.
Aim:
To bring together the owners and enthusiasts of the original Lotus Elan and +2 worldwide, to encourage the preservation, restoration and running of all Elans, to gather and record appropriate archive material, to maintain registers and to organise social and sporting gatherings.
Organisation:
The organisation of CLES will be kept simple and virtual, being web based as much as possible. A small team has come together, under Tim Wilkes and Mark Kempson, to establish CLES.
Membership of CLES is open to existing CL members and is free of any charge. Elan owners and enthusiasts are encouraged to join the CLES to help further the aims.
CLES is to have its own portal on the CL website, through which all communication, news and membership administration will take place. It is intended to have special interest areas as appropriate, reflecting particular Elan interests. It has direct links to many other web resources including the lotuselan.net forum.
The CLES will keep a register of all Elans, maintaining a close relationship with the factory and the Lotus archivist. Alongside CL, it will gather pertinent written materials, digitise them and make them available to members. In addition, CLES will keep evidence of original cars and parts, by having a virtual car collection composed of high quality photos of original cars of each type, to act as reference and available to all members. There will a dedicated CLES page in Club Lotus News, building on Brian Buckland’s articles and those written by Tim Mees.
It is planned to organise CLES specific meetings, including track days, socials and UK and European ‘raids’, as well as having a presence at the annual CL Festival.
For the future, the CLES team is looking at a number of projects, including mentors to help restoration projects, car vetting for potential purchasers, agreed value service in conjunction with CL, providing a tool exchange and exploring having spares made up in small runs to keep cars on the road, thus carrying on the work of Tim Mees and Charles Giles.
The CLES team is lead by Tim Wilkes and Mark Kempson, alongside Alex Black, Brian Buckland, Charles Giles, Jonathan Rawlinson, Norman Lupton, Norman Sheasby and Trevor Sparrow.
Tim Wilkes and Mark Kempson can be contacted via email at elansection@clublotus.co.uk.
Any questions, ideas etc for the website please contact Stuart Brown stuart@clublotus.co.uk.
CLES website home is here - http://www.clublotus.co.uk/elansection/lotuselans.aspx
To add your Elan to the CLES Register - https://www.clublotus.co.uk/elanregister.aspx
NOTE : You do not need to be a member of Club Lotus to have your car on the Elan Register, but to access all the portal information you do need to have a current membership.
All register information will be treated in confidence and used by Club Lotus Elan Section only for historical research purposes and to help verify cars in the future. The registry will not be made public or put into the public domain.