The Broadspeed Elan DUE 886K

[trw99]

I have been contacted by an enthusiast in Hawai, who is considering buying DUE 886K, the Sprint tuned by Ralph Broad in 1972 and road tested by Motor Sport magazine in May of that year.

The car is for sale in the US. It came out of the factory in January 1972 and was bought by a David Pannel, who almost immediately had Broadspeed breathe very heavily on the mono Colorado Orange coloured DHC. It ended up with a BDA 170 BHP engine, beefed up gearbox, LSD, modified steering and suspension. In April 1973 it found it’s way to Ethiopia and into the hands of someone serving with the US military there, before it was presumably shipped to the States.

At one time it appears to have worn the registration XTY 500. That is currently listed as being on an Elan first registered 1 Jan 1964, which has not been on the road since 1985.

Does anyone know any more about this car? Anyone see it in the UK between 1972-73 or hear about it subsequently in the US?

Tim

[trw99]

I had an interesting conversation this weekend with an Elan enthusiast who has just bought a Sprint. It came with original paperwork, which indicated that the car and another Sprint were bought in kit form by two brothers.

The other car was the Broadspeed Elan and the enthusiast I was talking to wanted to pass on this paperwork to the present owner (who is in Arizona and the car is for sale). This prompted me to bump this thread and to say that the Broadspeed Elan not only was tested by Motor Sport but also appeared in Motor magazine in August 1972. I have attached a copy of the test.

Tim

[elansprint71]

No news, I’m afraid but I do have a copy of the Motor Sport evaluation, if that is of any interest.

[trw99]

This one? (With due acknowledgement to Motor Sport magazine)

Tim

PS Pete, I can no longer see your avatar, have you changed it?

[bcmc33]

Perhaps I’m missing the point - I don’t believe the performance figures for the BDA.

The second article made me smile when it mentioned a cam seizing in the carrier - took me all the way back to my first week at Ford.

[aratchet]

It was in San Francisco in the mid 1985. It was in my shop. It was the worse for wear and needed a clutch. It also needed a flywheel as the disc had burrowed deeply into it. They had red loctited all 12 flywheel bolts(socket head capscrews) and they all rounded out making it quite a chore to remove the flywheel. The owner said it was owned and imported by an employee of the CIA. He was in the surveillance business and had written a book on the topic so had some credence. The motor was tired and blowing smoke, but was still impressive in it’s acceleration.

[elansprint71]

@trw99

This one? (With due acknowledgement to Motor Sport magazine)

Tim

PS Pete, I can no longer see your avatar, have you changed it?

Yes, that’s the one.

Looks like my avatar has disappeared during the recent cyber-attack and theft from my Flickr account. I really only use Flickr to host images for sites like this one and someone has been in there and mucked it up during last week, I didn’t think this was possible but some of the images are still just blanks. Not sure that I can be arsed with it any more.

[alan71]

Interesting to see they kept the small S4 radiator with 170 bhp

Alan.

[trw99]

These snaps were taken of the car last year.

Not too much has changed; the original mono Colorado Orange is now yellow of course, the oil filter has been repositioned (well, what looks like an oil filter!), air filters added, Otter switched removed.

Tim

[trw99]

Shortly after I posted the last message, I was contacted by Jeff Koch, a writer for Hemmings Sports and Exoctics magazine in the States.

We had quite a bit of correspondence on the Broadspeed Elan. The article he was writing then has just been published in the current edition of the magazine. There is a small photo of the Sprint on the cover with the tag ‘Broadspeed - A Lotus Elan With Muscle’

I haven’t yet read the article; anyone on that side of the pond seen it?

Tim

[Tahoe]

@trw99

Shortly after I posted the last message, I was contacted by Jeff Koch, a writer for Hemmings Sports and Exoctics magazine in the States.

We had quite a bit of correspondence on the Broadspeed Elan. The article he was writing then has just been published in the current edition of the magazine. There is a small photo of the Sprint on the cover with the tag ‘Broadspeed - A Lotus Elan With Muscle’

I haven’t yet read the article; anyone on that side of the pond seen it?

Tim

I was just given that magazine yesterday by my neighbor. I’ll scan the article and post it tomorrow if I remember to bring it to work. It seems as if that car has been for sale for quite some time. I remember seeing it for sale as long as 2 years ago at what seemed like a high price at the time. Anyone know what the asking price is today?

[Tahoe]

Just found this on the Locost forum.

Broadspeed.pdf (219 KB)

[trw99]

Thanks Russ

“For all you Lotus geeks out there, Bill Close also owns what’s known as the Broadspeed Lotus Elan. Apparently, there’s some history to this car and Colin Chapman himself used to drive it. Again, I’m not a car nut by any means, but Bill says this car’s been in hardcover books and the Broadspeed engine alone in it is worth something like $40-50K.”

I doubt Chapman ever got to drive it. It wasn’t in the UK for many months after Ralph Broad worked on it, it was in private ownership and happened to get a couple of tests published, presumably arranged by Broad himself. I also fail to see any significance in the fact that a photograph and a couple of sentences about the car appeared in a hardback book (Harvey’s excellent wee number).

And is the engine really worth that much?

Tim

[trw99]

Jeff Koch just sent me this link to more photos of the Broadspeed Sprint.

One photo has what I assume is an error - it say 170 mph when I rather suspect it means 170 bhp!

hemmings.com/hsx/stories/201 … ture2.html

Tim

[Tahoe]

Magazine article:

Files too large, splitting into multiple posts.

Broadspeed_Part1.pdf (532 KB)

Broadspeed_Part2.pdf (496 KB)

Broadspeed_Part3.pdf (497 KB)

[Tahoe]

Broadspeed_Part4.pdf (591 KB)

Broadspeed_Part5.pdf (538 KB)

Broadspeed_Part6.pdf (591 KB)

Broadspeed_Part7.pdf (511 KB)

[trw99]

Russ

Thanks so much for posting that, appreciate it.

Interesting read and it strikes me that, for all the grunt the BDA produces, a standard Sprint would give you the better drive on Elan roads. No wonder there was only one!

Tim

[Elanintheforest]

Thanks for posting that Russ.

The one and only Elan with a BDA eh? My Plus 2 had its BDA fitted in 1971, a year before Broadspeed made the Sprint, and there are a few others about.

It seems strange that they converted the engine to wet sump, when that’s how it came out of the crate, and mine uses the standard Twincam sump, so no issues with the cross member being modified. The head and cam carrier is taller than the twincam though, which required a bump to be let into the bonnet.

My engine was dyno’d at 170bhp as well, and has none of the intractability they seem to have found in the Broadspeed. Maybe they have a tall first gear close ratio box fitted? Mine are the standard 2000E ?interim? ratios (standard Elan box) with a 3.55 diff, and getting off the line isn’t too impressive, but the engine is well mannered in doing it! I do have the standard flywheel, which would support an easier getaway I guess, so it feels much the same as a twincam. Once on the move the BDA shows what it?s got, and the car is a scream to drive, and it screams up to 8000 rpm quite happily?.same tuftrided crank used by the Broadspeed.

It sounds like the Broadspeed also needs the suspension sorting out, and maybe the standard wheels put back on to eliminated the harsh and jarring drive. Mine is standard with the exception of Koni adjustables, set at their softest setting, and the handling and ride is superb.

The guy who did my car ran Dave Smith Engineering in North London, and tweaked and improved the engine over many years, finally settling on a big valve BDA head just with 40s. 45s were fitted for a while and it developed a fair bit more power but sipped fuel at 8 or 9 mpg and apparently became a lot more temperamental!

He used the car to commute around North London in the 70s, and for several European trips, including Spain and Italy in the summer, and it runs the standard radiator. The car managed 70k miles before the engine needed rebuilding, when it was rebuilt into an AX thickwall block, but otherwise exactly the same spec as before.

It does sound like the Broadspeed has suffered from a lack of development, or perhaps it has been ‘tweeked’ in the past 30 or so years, and just needs setting up properly.

A fab car though…I’d love to get hold of that!

Mark