Elva - The Cars, The People, The History

The story of Elva is one of ingenuity, romance, ambition, chalk lines on the floor, hacksaws, files, and panel beating. It reminds us that today's Computer Aided Design techniques, wind tunnel testing, telemetry reports, and big business motor racing were born in a much simpler but no less effective setting. Indeed, strands of thought initiated by people such as Frank Nichols, the founder of Elva, still prevail in the design, execution, and sales of racing cars today. Elva: The Cars, The People, The History is the only definitive history of how this magical marque came to be, who was behind it, how it prospered, fell on hard times, rose again, and eventually melted away. In some ways, the history of Elva paralleled those of its English contemporaries such as Lotus, Lola, Cooper, and Brabham. In many other respects, Elva was unique. As a constructor of cars it did not survive the1960s, unlike some others. But in its day it enjoyed the respect of customers, competitors, and motor racing aficionados in measure equal to or greater than those others. Among the legacies of Elva is its relationship with some of the most revered names in motorsport. Elva was the first race chassis builder entrusted by Porsche to carry its engines in competition. Elva was one of the first to adopt a BMW motor as a standard component. When Bruce McLaren set out on a dual path of being both a racer and a constructor, he turned to Elva to produce cars for customers. Earlier, Elva pioneered the use of better-breathing cylinder heads, inboard brakes, fiberglass bodies, and magnesium alloy wheels. When Formula Junior appeared as a low-cost racing category appealing to a broad market, Elva was the first British manufacturer to build production models. Marques such as MG, Triumph, and Austin-Healey seemingly cornered the market for lower-end high-performance roadsters, but Elva's truly dual-purpose Courier made a valiant attempt at carving out a particular niche as a roadworthy car with true competition potential. These projects were fraught with issues which caused Elva's temporary shutdown, yet Frank Nichols revived the company via new markets and new models. Elva's successes and failures during each period of its existence involved a corps of key people, and this book is about them as well as the cars. These people include the designers, managers, and other workers at the company as well as Elva distributors and customers in several countries. Significantly, also included is an exhaustive appendices of more than 2,000 people who have competed in Elvas and more than 13,000 records of Elva racing results spanning seven decades, but foremost, this book is the story of Frank Nichols, the founder of Elva.