It's great to see the restoration projects, their progress and the enthusiasm of their owners. To watch two young members Ian Wisbon and Mike Clifford, a not so young member Kevin Michael and now an old member (me) all working on the same goal of restoring Elva cars is actually exciting. We'll all be watching each weekend for the first appearance of these gems.

This winter I took the Elva apart again to further work on the handling problems and fix cracked body parts. First I removed the nose and bulkhead behind the driver and the side pods. Then I sanded the paint off of them, primed and painted them. I removed all four springs and went to softer ones. This is my third spring change. Each time using softer springs in an effort to move weight around the car and help the handling. Last year I drove the car conservatively because it would not take hard cornering without some form of understeer or oversteer. I have too much time and money wrapped up in the restoration and I know that any off track venture can bend the small tubing that makes up the frame. I also restored my pedal box built a muffler for Limerock.

I assembled the car and drove it to Ted Wenz's shop in Savannah to have the motor refreshed. I asked him to look over the car and check that I have everything assembled correctly. I then proceeded to Florida for vacation. Ted called and said that I had unequal length lower suspension arms in the rear so the car was crabbing. He fixed that problem and mentioned several other items that I need to address. He then transported the car to the HSR Palm Beach Grand Prix where I met him.

Outstanding Chuck!

I need to get to the garage and get some updated photos. Or maybe I'll strap a GoPro to Scott's head while he works.

There's some nice video from the HSR event below, you can see Chuck's awesome Elva at the 2:45 mark.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK7q_Us1JfU[/youtube]

The Parmalat sponsored Formula 2 car, shown later in the video, 3:04, is an *extremely* nice car. Saw it run a few times at Summit, wow

Even more exciting Elva stuff:

Ken Williamson purchased the notchback Elva Courier coupe that has been for sale for the last few months. It is race ready. It went through a very expensive restoration in 2004 and is in fabulous shape. The engine compartment is beautiful, and it has a dual weber crossflow head.

Elva is going to be well-represented in the VRG paddock. By fall, we'll have two of the 35 Courier coupes, including one each of the notchback and fastback designs!