By Steve Hole

The Elva marque is a well-regarded one in specialist car terms producing some great roadcars and some superb racers. They produced the first Courier in 1958. Elva boss, Frank Nichols was regarded as a real character and sat at the same table as other industry mavericks such as Chris Lawrence, Jem Marsh.

Lambretta Trojan took over production of the Courier (the roadgoing Couriers basically) and moved production to their site in Croydon, Nichols cracked on with the development of a string of Elva racecars between 1963-65, in the shape of the Elva GT160 and a string of other BMW-powered cars such as the MkVII and MKVIII (there was a batch of Porsche-powered Elvas too, it should be pointed out).

The BMW 1.5 four-cylinder was a superb little engine and produced around 80bhp in standard trim. For Elva use, however, Nichols had his engine man, Ted Martin work closely with ex-Weslake engineer, Frank Webb, who was running the tuning company, Nerus Engineering, ‘breathe’ on it.

They fitted Nerus dry sump kits, spiky Jeffrey camshafts did other general tinkering resulting in two variants: a 1.8 and a 2-litre. The former was rated at about 1110bhp with the 2-litre at 185bhp. A spiteful little engine and a huge hike from standard.

Elva was the first non-German company to be allowed to use the BMW unit incidentally.

A variety of drivers enjoyed success in the MkVII including Trevor Taylor, Frank Gardner, Bob Waters, Keith St. John, Peter Gethin and particularly Tony Lanfranchi who was works driver, entered under the Elva Equipe (London) banner, with the team managed by ex-Lotus engineer and designer of the Unipower GT, Ernie Unger. Lanfranchi stormed to fourteen wins in 1964.

Meanwhile, in Scotland, William Forbes was putting on a real display of quality, winning more than his fair share of races.

The car did well in America too, particularly in the hands of Doug Revson, although the Elva marque’s products were always very popular there.

A very notable admirer of Elva and Frank Nichols in particular was a pre-knighted Stirling Moss. Amazingly, in period, Moss never raced an Elva but was impressed with the way they performed and general presentation.

It was 1987 when Moss purchased his Elva MkVII from Richard Thwaites with the sole intention of competing in the prestigious new FIA Cartier Championship For Historic Cars – some 25 years after his career-ending accident at Goodwood, although it wasn’t his first competitive race since retirement though, as he’d entered the British Touring Car Championship in 1980 driving for Audi.

Stirling was still clearly a very rapid driver; he was dynamite in the Elva and was clearly having a ball. For the second round of the championship on June 7, I was there. The meeting was organised by the Aston Martin Owners Club and also on the racecard that weekend was a round of the HSCC Historic F1 championship, which I think was dominated by future Brands Hatch owner, the late John Foulston.

Moss had three TV crews and various newspapers following him around all day and all the interest was unsurprisingly centred around him.

Anyway, in the Historic Car championship, Moss qualified third and started on the second row. I can’t really remember other than Lotus 23 and a Diva GT and of course, Moss’ Elva what other cars were competing.

In the race, Stirling nipped past Steve Hitchens’ Lotus 23B and was tucked in behind Mark Littlewood’s Lotus 23, before nailing him coming out of Graham Hill Bend. Actually, I think he’d been planning the move entering Druids. He looked sure to win, although he couldn’t shake Littlewood off, but on the last lap he was baulked by a back marker and lost the lead to Littlewood who won, with Moss in a creditable second.

It was a bit of a masterclass of smooth but incredibly fast driving. The sound of that screaming BMW engine was glorious.