Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

Racing Replicas Elva Courier
#1

   

Coming soon from Pete Shepherd's Racing Replicas is a wonderful Elva Courier - available as a ready-to-run slot car or as a resin kit. It features an accurate 1:32 scale body measured from one of the Elvas that Pete races against in the Equipe GTS classic racing series for production sports cars. There's a separate resin interior, optional roll bar, tonneau cover and mirror to allow the Courier to represent period 50's, 60's or modern-day classic racing cars...

       

The first two samples are shown here. The blue car is finished as a late 1950s club racer and the yellow one is more mid-60s and a slightly more serious competitor. Pete's skill in building and finishing a slot car model is always a privilege to see...

       

The Elva Courier is a great car to model. With a fibreglass body covering a tubular chassis, plus a 1489cc straight-four B-Series MGA engine coupled to a four-speed BMC gearbox, Elva's first production road car proved a big hit - sales being driven by success in North America from its launch in 1958. The engine position gave a near 50:50 weight distribution for excellent handling - and with the featherweight 700kg driven by upwards of 70bhp, the Courier had a 0-60 time of 11.2 seconds and a top speed of 100mph.

       

The first batch of Couriers were built at Frank Nichols' workshop in Bexhill, where he'd been building his Elva sports prototypes. Demand for the road cars meant a move to a proper factory in nearby Hastings, employing sixty staff who turned out three cars per week. Production of the Courier continued at full capacity into the 1960s - but Nichols went bankrupt when his American partner failed to pay up, a large shipment of cars lying on the quayside in New York with no way to recover them. The company was bought by Trojan-Lambretta and production of the Courier shifted to Croydon in 1962. Sports prototypes continued to be built by Nichols on the South Coast at Rye, most famously the customer versions of the early McLaren sports cars.

Here's what a racing Elva Courier looks and sounds like today...



The Racing Replicas body is designed to use a Penelope Pitlane Formula E chassis and scale 14" wheels, as were fitted on the real car...

       

The previous two Racing Replicas 'production' models - an Austin Healy 100 and MG MGA - have been sold through Pendle Slot Racing as hand-finished ready-to-run models (£179.99), a resin body kit with detailing parts and decals (£35) and a kit + running gear package using the PCS32 chassis for the Healy 100 and the Penelope Pitlane SMJ for the MGA (£72.50 and £75 respectively). The Elva should be in the same ballpark.

The new kit is expected soon - contact Pete directly via the Racing Replicas website or keep an eye on the Racing Replicas store at Pendles: https://www.pendleslotracing.co.uk/brand...licas.html

   
[+] 7 members Like woodcote's post
Quote


Possibly Related Threads...
Thread / Author Replies Views Last Post
Last Post by john roche
3rd-Nov-23, 02:45 PM
Last Post by woodcote
3rd-Dec-21, 08:46 AM

Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)