Just before Christmas I received a phone call from Roger Dunbar of Elva. He asked me whether the Trust was looking for a Trojan Made Elva Courier as he knew of one which was looking for a home. Trojan made Elva's in the early sixties and it was this which started their racing car division. Many of these Elva's were exported to America where the demand for sports cars was greater, so to be offered the opportunity of getting one for the Trust was something not to be missed. This particular Elva Courier had been dry stored for the past twenty or so years when it had been owned by Jackie Duckett who had recently died, and it was now left to her mother to deal with the car. Roger contacted her on behalf of the Trust and found that she was very pleased with the prospect of her daughters Elva eventually being on display in a Trojan Museum and happily agreed to donate the car to the Trust.
Now the only problem was to collect it! The day which I had arranged to do this clashed with a spell of snowy weather so with much trepidation I set of armed with a van, a trailer, tools and emergency supplies in case of getting stuck in the snow. As I drove I realised that the snow wasn't really very bad with the roads being clear until I reached the actual road where the lady lived, this was covered in compacted ice and snow. Oh dear, things looked tricky, gingerly I made my way to the house, only to find that the car was at the end of a snow covered drive with a steep slope up onto the road, which was icy and muddy and to top it all there was a large skip completely blocking the drive. This was not going to be an easy operation! However, Mrs Duckett welcomed me with a good cup of tea and explained that they had assumed that I would not be coming due to the snow. Soon her son joined us and we started to clear a way for the Elva. Fortunately the skip was nearly empty, so with the aid of a trolley jack and some large pieces of wood and a lot of brute force we slid the skip to the edge of the drive. Now for the car itself, first we pumped up the tyres and then proceeded to jack up first the back, then the front and make sure that the wheels were turning freely, this involved dismantling the front brakes. Using the son's car we then towed the Elva from the garage and up the drive but when the tow car reached the bank up onto the road its wheels spun and we could go no further. After some thought we moved the tow car out of the way and parked the van and trailer on the road just up to the drive. This allowed us to use the trailers winch which we past around a hammer stuck into the corner of the trailer so allowing us to winch the Elva out of the drive at ninety degrees to the trailer. After three hours of work the Elva was finally safely loaded onto the trailer, and with some relief we warmed ourselves around a much needed cup of coffee. Despite being virtually bedridden Mrs Duckett had managed to find the documents and the keys for the car, which both make the restoration much easier.
The car is now safely stored awaiting restoration, it is sound and complete and so hopefully will not be too large a project for the Trust. I must thank Roger Dunbar for finding and arranging for the Elva to come to us and a special thanks to Mrs. Duckett for donating the car.