Larry L's Elan

By Jon Rosner

In November, 1964 the decision was made to begin manufacture of a Series 2 Elan using some bodies and chassis originally intended for Series 1 production. The seventeenth of these cars was built sometime between November and December of that year; it would have a different destiny. The car was sold to an individual named George Walker, a man said to have had a trust fund to take care of his needs. 1964 heralded the beginnings of a new movement in San Francisco, the acid-induced Psychedelic Age.

Ken Kesey, author of the book " One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, "founded a group called "The Merry Pranksters," George Walker became one of its earliest members. The stories about "The Merry Pranksters" became the basis of Tom Wolfe's book "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test." From Page 20 of the book: "The Merry Pranksters" were all rapidly assembling, waiting for Kesey. George Walker arrives. Walker has on no costume. He is just like some clean cut blond college kid wearing a t-shirt and courderoy pants, smiling and outgoing, just a good west coast golden boy except for a few random notes like the Lotus car he has outside, painted with orange day-glo so that it lights up at dusk, skidding around the corners of the California suburbs in four wheel drifts."

The car had not stayed original for very long after receipt. The chassis must have come off, as it was painted bright yellow. Flares were professionally installed to make room for six and eight inch wide magnesium wheels carrying eight and ten inch twenty series tires!! And while the body received a coat of flourescent orange paint, a mechanic from Premier Imports, a Volvo Dealership in San Carlos, built the engine up outside of his normal working hours. The mechanic ported and polished the head, reground the cams and possibly balanced the engine. The car was apparently driven like this for a while, the story goes that George Walker and a friend nicknamed "The Arab" drove the car for 5,000 miles, probably across the country.

The next incarnation is even more interesting. The body was painted with psychedelic designs in metallic and flourescent colors, top-grade metallic green naughahyde covered the seats, the door panels, the side panels, the kick panels, and firewall, while white shag carpeted the floors. This was complemented by the sheet of plexiglass over the taillights, fixed headlights with plexiglass covers instead of pop-up pods, and a walnut formica veneered steel dashboard. Driving lights and engine cooling fan were added later for effect.

The car is believed to have been auto-crossed and driven extensively in the Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco, where it wouldn't have been so noticeable. In 1972, George Walker was driving the car on a secondary road, posibly in a "Merry Prankster" condition when the rear bumper of the station wagon he was attempting to pass came in contact with the right front side of the car, from the headlamp all the way back to the rear wheel. There is reason to believe that the car was wrecked in this incident.

One Randall Styer now came into possession of a now very sad looking Lotus. Changes he made to the car included installation of new rear bodywork with Volkswagon taillghts, turned sideways as the tail assembly. And Randall must have had a thing about about cardboard, as he used several pounds of the stuff, impregnated with resin, to build up the right side of the car !!

In 1974, the current owner, Larry Lapuyade saw an advertisement in the local newspaper for a Lotus Elan with a low price listed. Larry went out and drove the car, it was a truly a mess, but it had the best brakes of any car he'd ever driven and he bought it. Larry then proceeded to strip the car down to the bone and rebuild it. Under the shag carpet he found two things of interest. Page five of a letter to George's attorney stating condition, previous repairs, estimate of value, and references to a fellow named Hasler who had been a prominent member of the "Merry Pranksters," and had been connected to the car in Tom Wolfe's book. The not so happy second fact found on strip down was the discovery that there was a large area of tar-coated aluminum sheeting in place of fiberglass bodywork behind the driver's seat. This along with terrible fiberglas repair work, one very smashed door, and a shattered headlamp section, not to mention spider cracks everywhere, meant that there was several hundred hours worth of work ahead.

Larry rebuilt the engine with the help of Rich Kamp (who did the transmission at a later date.) At this point Joe LaCosta, of San Mateo, built up a set of detachable headers (as he had done several years before for a fellow named Caroll Shelby for an Anglo-American prototype.) Between 1974 and 1977 Larry got to know the car real well and was ready to prime it. The only past to come forward was that a fellow nicknamed "The Arab" showed up one day in Larry's Marin County driveway confirming Larry's beliefs about the car and promising to bring George Walker by. This he did, on Walker's 36th birthday. That and Larry getting stopped in the car once by the police who informed him that someone who had driven the car had some serious outstanding warrants, and that it would be a good idea to get new plates!!

Since then the car, in full psychedelic dress, has shown up in Ken Kesey's book, "The Further Adventures Of Further" and Ken Bab's book "On The Bus." Rich Kamp was able to track down the photographer, Ron Bevirt, from the picture credits and bought one of the pictures having two copies made to poster size. One is on the wall at Kampena Motors and the other is in Larry's livingroom in Marin. Larry has essentially rebuilt the entire car including wiring, dashboard, door panels, console cover, crash pad and carpeted the interior. He restored the front and rear suspensions replaced the gas tank, rejetted the carbs and painted the car in 1983.

Except for the wide flairs, headlights rear spoiler and mag wheels the car looks like a lot of other early Elans, but open the hood and a bit of psychedelic paint shouts at you that this car has an interesting past to speak about. The car can be seen in and about Marin County, no longer passing anything and everything in sight anywhere in particular where someone is moving at less than warp speed.

At the moment the car is waiting for the installation of a new timing chain. The mags look very pitted, the paint is ten years old, and like every Lotus I've ever known, it need a bit more here and there. And sometimes you can forget why you bought the damn thing in the first place; that is until you start the engine and take it out for a run. Then you remember. There just ain't nothin' else like it anywhere, man and machine molded into one, and by gum someone has to drive the thing and deal with all the smilin', well it may as well be us. Long live another silly Lotus and the driver who cares for her.