Elfin boss, Tony Edmondson, about to have a steer of his new Elfin FF84P on July 27, 1984 before handing the car over to Mark Poole in the centre. It’s a significant day in the history of Elfin Sports Cars.
Company founder, Garrie Cooper’s untimely death was on April 25, 1982. Garrie’s father, Cliff, kept the wheels on the wagon after dealing with his grief, building and selling six Elfin NG (New Generation) Formula Vees and continuing repair and restoration work. This car is the first built under the Don Elliott and Tony Edmondson ownership/management regime after the sale by the Coopers to them in 1983.
Reflecting on the early period of his Elfin ownership, Elliott said, ‘We thought, bugger it, there’s no-one building cars (in Australia), so we built a couple of Formula Fords. It started from there. We were flat out from that time building and repairing cars.’
FF84P #EP006 was designed by Jon Porter together with Edmondson, and built by that pair and legendary Elfin welder/fabricator Fulvio Mattiolo; Porter and Mattiolo stayed on after the sale of the business.
Mark Poole was the designated driver, he had been making name for himself in an Elfin NG and an old Elfin 623 VW ANF2 car. Poole’s father, Keith made the very first Elfin NG sing way back in 1976. Keith’s business, Volksrepair was Elfin Sports Cars neighbour at 3-7 Conmurra Ave, Edwardstown; Elfins were at 1 Conmurra. Mark Poole operates RSR Sports Cars, a Porsche race, service and restoration business from the same address today.
Poole contested local meetings (?), the 1984 Winton round of the Australian Formula Ford Driver to Europe Series finishing ninth, he took in the ’85 Oran Park round and was seventh. The car was sold to David Craig in 1986, he ran Russell Ingall in it in the ’87 FF race at the Australian GP carnival in Adelaide, finishing ninth. Clive Hill bought it in 1989.
Tony Edmondson, ‘The Formula Ford was an in-house development funded entirely from the factory and the intention was always to be competitive in that car, then make multiple cars for customers.’
Only one customer car was sold, #EP009 was completed in 1985, and therefore called an FF85 and sold to David Duncombe.
‘With Formula Ford, the leaning was always for competitors to buy tried and proven cars from England. That was disappointing. That’s the sort of marketplace that we were dealing with all the time’, recalled Edmondson.
It’s the sort of marketplace Elfin, Bowin, Birrana, Cheetah, Rennmax and others have always faced, and in which they often prevailed.
If Edmondson and Elliott wanted to sell FFs in volume, the-go would have been to put Elfin Old-Boy Larry Perkins into the FF84P for two days of testing to get the basic settings right: springs, bars, camber, castor, toe, brake bias etc. Then plonk into it a seasoned FF campaigner, bringing a bit of a budget and win a few races. Ingall would have done quite nicely, not that he was a seasoned FF pilot at that stage; he won the Australian title/series aboard a Van Diemen RF90 in 1990 before heading to the UK and more FF success. His subsequent FF credentials are well covered here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Ingall
The standout FF designs in 1984-85 were Adrian Reynard’s Reynard FF83-84, and the Van Diemen RF85, these cars were inspired by David Bruns’ Swift DB1 in the United States, one of THE FF designs; none raced here in-period.
The slender chassis, needle nose, hip radiators, central fuel tank and inboard suspension front and rear are all absolutely state of the FF art at the time. It does make you wonder what the cars could have done with the right development…
Credits…
Steve McCawley, Colin Locke Canon via the Auto Action Archive courtesy of Bruce Williams, ‘ETSS’ ‘Elfin:The Spirit of Speed’ David Dowsey
Finito…
primotipo... 