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I owned this 1968 Lotus Élan Series 3 "Super Safety" Coupé from 1976 to 1999.
Profile of my Elan

Interior

Specs:

From 1998:

I was 23 in 1976 when I bought my '68 S3 Super Safety FHC as the second owner. I had been driving a '69 Triumph GT6+, my first car, and loved the small size, performance and handling of the GT6 compared to the large US station wagon with automatic transmission that I had learned to pilot. However, a friend who taught me to drive a stick shift told me about his brother's Elan, which piqued my interest. He no longer owned it, so I had to go hunting. Along the way, I test drove every sports car that a dealer would let me drive (the Ferrari dealer told me I could test it *after* I paid for it).  At my friend's suggestion, I went to have a chat with Don Tingle, whose shop was in a nearby town to mine in Massachusetts. I saw my first Lotuses in the flesh, and was smitten. As those were his customer's cars, I was unable to drive them, so I went next to the Lotus dealer and test drove a Europa -WOW! I felt very ham-fisted in such a light and responsive car, since I was accustomed to the much stiffer and sloppier steering of the Triumph, but I realized that I would need to find a way to buy a Lotus soon! Tingle eventually found an Elan for me, which happened to be a coupe. In retrospect, I am very glad I bought this model and not the DHC. I much prefer the quieter operation, the lack of hood maintenance, and the beauty of this design. I gradually learned to drive it pretty well, with the help of many parking-lot autocrosses and Solo-II driving schools and races at the Briar track in Loudon, NH.  I drove the car every day for three years, a year of which included an hour-long work commute. I also learned how to do almost all of the maintenance on it. The Snap-On man and I were on a first-name basis! Then, a valve burned, just as I had decided to replace the Stromberg head with a Weber one. It took me a while to hunt up the parts, used, and at this point I had just moved to rural Vermont, a long way from Tingle's aid. Money became tighter and I started a family. (Or was it the other way around?) So, I sidelined my beloved car ("just temporarily," I said to myself). Eight years slipped by before I rebuilt the transmission and engine, now with a Weber head and 45DCOEs that used to belong to the comedian Dick Smothers, for his Brabham. But the frame, having sat in fields for eight years, needed some welding by an expert. Seven more years went by...and I finally had the car towed back to Tingle's for a replacement frame and a few million odds and ends that turned up during the process. Finally, three years ago, the job was done, and I was once again driving my Elan! I was now 40... Two months and 2000 miles (on my old engine/tranny rebuild) later, I encountered transmission problems that led me to pull the engine again. I easily fixed the trans, but the engine needed more work and money, so it has sat in my garage (finally - a garage!) since then. It's almost done. ;-)

When I sold it in late 1999, this car had 66,000 miles on it. I would much rather have kept this car until I was too old to drive, but I needed the money.  I'd invested a great deal into it, most of which was during a body-off restoration which included a replacement chassis and new brakes at 62,876 miles. I had the engine expertly rebuilt at 64,000 miles, including a re-bore of the block and regrinding of the crank. The body was in fairly poor cosmetic condition, but was in generally first-rate mechanical condition. It was truly a joy to drive! Both the original owner and I had had only expert mechanical work done on the car, mostly by Don Tingle of Tingle's Lotus Center in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, and Craig Wehde of Sports & Vintage Car in Plainfield, New Hampshire. 

What's so neat about the coupé version of the Élan rather than the roadster?

What's unusual about this "Super Safety" Series 3 model?

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