As I mentioned to the members present at the July meeting, whilst posting out last months Trumpet at the Bayswater Mail Centre, I bumped into a man by the name of Steve Taylor. Now Steve is a Lotus man through and through, he runs his own business called “The Elan Factory”.
Terry and I did a recon visit to the Elan Factory a few weeks ago, one to check out the cars and two, to sound them out for a coming event. Whilst Steve is happy to receive visitors, it needs to be arranged by prior appointment.
Whilst living in the UK, Steve owned and cut his teeth on small Triumphs including Spitfire, GT6 and Bond Equipe. He now operates a specialized business that embraces Lotus Cars from 1960 to the current production cars. This includes the Lotus 7, Elan, Turbo Esprit and Elise, to name but a few. The business offers servicing, restoration, manufacturing of obsolete and custom designed components, plus mail order service. He also imports parts from the UK including a range of Quinton Hazell products. Quinton Hazell is one of the UK’s largest OEM parts suppliers.
They make an extensive range of quality parts for many British cars including Triumph.
Steve also distributes Gunson’s products. You may remember tools such as the Colourtune and Ezibleed hydraulic clutch and brake bleeding kits, both of these come to mind. I do recall we have had some past discussion in the club to purchase some of these items for the TCCV tool library, but had no source of supply, well now we have found such an outlet for these types of handy tuning tools, plus we were shown some simple and very efficient tools, that you could make yourself at no great expense, but more on this later. Steve’s right-hand-man Gary Woodward, has an interesting background too. He was has 15 years experience in Formula One and worked for Williams and BAR (Honda). Gary immigrated to Australia to join Ford Performance Racing (FPR), and then about 2 years ago moved to the Elan Factory.
The quality of the workmanship is second to none and the whole business is run like an F1 garage/workshop. Both Gary and Steve have formal engineering backgrounds, and have the right attitude towards the preservation of the Lotus Marque, both are avid car enthusiasts. The Elan Factory is hoping to move to new and larger premises in the not too distant future. When this happens I will arrange with Steve to hold a club event for the members. A major point of interest for the members is that the Lotus Elan shares the same front suspension, brakes and steering with the Herald, Vitesse, Spitfire and GT6. Through The Elan Factory, our members can order a comprehensive range of Quinton Hazell parts for our Triumphs or if you want your own Gunson’s accessories, they will be happy to get it in for us as they ship parts out regularly. Give Steve Taylor a call and he will be happy to order them in from the UK for you, details on the card below, mention this article in Trumpet when you contact them, their web site is well worth a visit too (see business card or page 28). Needless to say, both Terry and I were impressed with The Elan Factory, it makes you want to own one, especially when you meet people like this who know the product inside out, and believe in quality assurance. Well I have rambled on too long, and gone over my regular page. Its time to sign off.
Above Steve’s business card and below is a picture from the Elan Factory showing an Elan under restoration and just how clean the workshop environment is.
Chris Newell - Editor
Terry and I did a recon visit to the Elan Factory a few weeks ago, one to check out the cars and two, to sound them out for a coming event. Whilst Steve is happy to receive visitors, it needs to be arranged by prior appointment.
Whilst living in the UK, Steve owned and cut his teeth on small Triumphs including Spitfire, GT6 and Bond Equipe. He now operates a specialized business that embraces Lotus Cars from 1960 to the current production cars. This includes the Lotus 7, Elan, Turbo Esprit and Elise, to name but a few. The business offers servicing, restoration, manufacturing of obsolete and custom designed components, plus mail order service. He also imports parts from the UK including a range of Quinton Hazell products. Quinton Hazell is one of the UK’s largest OEM parts suppliers.
They make an extensive range of quality parts for many British cars including Triumph.
Steve also distributes Gunson’s products. You may remember tools such as the Colourtune and Ezibleed hydraulic clutch and brake bleeding kits, both of these come to mind. I do recall we have had some past discussion in the club to purchase some of these items for the TCCV tool library, but had no source of supply, well now we have found such an outlet for these types of handy tuning tools, plus we were shown some simple and very efficient tools, that you could make yourself at no great expense, but more on this later. Steve’s right-hand-man Gary Woodward, has an interesting background too. He was has 15 years experience in Formula One and worked for Williams and BAR (Honda). Gary immigrated to Australia to join Ford Performance Racing (FPR), and then about 2 years ago moved to the Elan Factory.
The quality of the workmanship is second to none and the whole business is run like an F1 garage/workshop. Both Gary and Steve have formal engineering backgrounds, and have the right attitude towards the preservation of the Lotus Marque, both are avid car enthusiasts. The Elan Factory is hoping to move to new and larger premises in the not too distant future. When this happens I will arrange with Steve to hold a club event for the members. A major point of interest for the members is that the Lotus Elan shares the same front suspension, brakes and steering with the Herald, Vitesse, Spitfire and GT6. Through The Elan Factory, our members can order a comprehensive range of Quinton Hazell parts for our Triumphs or if you want your own Gunson’s accessories, they will be happy to get it in for us as they ship parts out regularly. Give Steve Taylor a call and he will be happy to order them in from the UK for you, details on the card below, mention this article in Trumpet when you contact them, their web site is well worth a visit too (see business card or page 28). Needless to say, both Terry and I were impressed with The Elan Factory, it makes you want to own one, especially when you meet people like this who know the product inside out, and believe in quality assurance. Well I have rambled on too long, and gone over my regular page. Its time to sign off.
Above Steve’s business card and below is a picture from the Elan Factory showing an Elan under restoration and just how clean the workshop environment is.
Chris Newell - Editor