Elfin Racing Car Development, 1964 through 1968, especially the Mono and type 300

[SJ Lambert]

Elfin Racing Cars started promisingly enough in the late 50's, by the early sixties their formula junior open wheeler and Mallala Sports racers were showing some real promise.

Their replacements were pretty intriguing though, Garrie Cooper had a ANF1.5 monocoque up & running in 1964 (incidentally, Ron Tauranac didn't feel the need to go to a tub in F1 til 69/70 with the BT33 debuting in 1970) and to replace the Mallala, Garrie offered the wonderful looking little 300 that could handle up to 2 litres of Climax motor in 1967. For what it's worth, I think the 300 was "on the drawing board years earlier than that, but more of that later).

My Dad, Ron Lambert worked with Garrie and the rest of the crew at the Elfin Works Team in Conmurra Avenue from just after the first Mono til the completion of the first type 600 open wheeler - as a result I am lucky enough to be able to work on a Mono & a type 300, so as I get a chance, I'll have a look at how the Monos developed from the initial Mk 1 through to the Mk2 D variants, as well, I'll have a look at the story behind how the 300 came about. I may even quiz Ron on what effect, if any, the types 100 (Mono) & 300 had on the genesis of the spaceframe 600.

Photos and more ramblings to follow! (Better get the Mono restoration completed & get her on track too, so forgive me if contributions here are infrequent for the time being).