Pete05
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- 7,059
- Melbourne, Australia
The Australian based company, Elfin Cars, was formed in 1957 for the purposes of creating sports cars and competing in motor racing. Their products have included racers for Formula Vee, Formula 5000 and sports car racing. They have won at least 29 championships and major titles.
David McKay drove a newly created
Elfin in it's inaugural race to a victory at the Mallala circuit in South Australia. After that race, the name 'Mallala' was given to the car. The vehicle was later raced by Greg Cusack under the Scuderia Veloce banner. The Scuderia Veloce car, bearing chassis number S6311, was fitted with a Ford 116E engine. Chassis number S6315 was fitted with a Ford Consul engine. Chassis S6316 was given a Climax 2.4-litre engine, and chassis S6317 was given a Ford/Cosworth engine.
In total, there were five examples created beginning in late 1962 and continuing into 1963. The construction was handled by Elfin Sports Cars of Edwardstown, South Australia and built by Garrie Cooper. The chassis constructed of a space-frame type using mild steel 18g tube in 35, 32, 19 and 16 mm diameters. For chassis 6316 the gauge was increased to 16g, tuning size generally increased by 3 mm.
The bodywork was aluminium flat and single-curved sections, fibreglass nose and tail except on the first car (chassis 6311) which was originally aluminium. The suspension was tubular wishbones, coil-over shock absorbers, 12.7 mm non-adjustable anti-roll bars. The rear was by reversed lower wishbones, driveshaft top link, trailing radius arms, except on chassis 6316, which used a tubular top link, splined driveshaft and chassis 6318 which had a tubular top link and driveshafts with rubber donuts.
The wheels were 13" in diameter and 4.75"/5.5" width rims originally but with many exceptions.
The brakes were 240 mm discs in the front and 216 mm drums in the rear. The last three cars had discs on all four corners.
The engine was a Lotus Twin Cam 1600 cc unit matted to a Hewland five speed gearbox.
http://www.conceptcarz.com/vehicle/z13118/Elfin_Mallala/default.aspx
http://www.oldracingcars.com/f5000/elfin/
http://www.racingsportscars.com/type/archive/Elfin/Mallala.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elfin_Mallala
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elfin_Sports_Cars
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