1976 Elfin MR8C #11 - Cars of the MSC Tasman Revival Series*
Situated in Melbourne, Australia, is a museum dedicated to the Elfin racing marque which was founded in 1957 by Australian Garrie Cooper. The museum is owned and run by avid Elfin collector Bill Hemming who is currently in New Zeland competing in the MSC Tasman Revival F5000 Series. Hemming is driving the Efin MR8C in the traditional Team Ansett colours. There are two other Elfin’s also competing alongside Hemming:
Efin MR5L – Owner Paul Trevethan;
Elfin MR8C – Owner Ken James.
The name Elfin was started after Copper built the Elfin stream liner, similar to the Lotus 11. He built approximately 250 cars, 26 different models from clubmans to juniors, big sportcars to F5000.
Hemming comments, “The thing about Elfin is that all his cars were successful. His Formula Junior won the Australian championship, the MR8s won the Australian drivers championship with John McCormick in 1973 (Elfin MR5 Repco Holden) and 1975 (Elfin MR6 Repco Holden), won the Singapore (1968 Elfin Ford driven by Garrie Cooper) and Malaysian GP’s (1968 & 69).”
“At won stage he was the second largest race car manufacturer in the world behind Lotus in the early 60s.”
There were four different F5000 models, the MR5, MR6, MR8 and MR9 (the number 7 was designated for sports cars). The MR9 was the ground effects car which only ran three races before F5000 was banned in 79.
Hemming owns the number 11 Elfin MR8C, the second of three. It was built in 1976 and was ready in early 1977 for Vern Schuppan to race in the Australian Drivers Championship. Unfortunately Max Stewart, driving a Lola ran up the back of the Elfin at Calder Park Raceway, Melbourne and was fatally injured.
Schuppan took the car back to the US in late 77 and put a Le Mans body on it, competing in the 78/79 Can Am series. The car came back to Australia in the 1990s with the Le Mans body on it and restoration saw it back in the original F5000 body in 2003.
Hemming’s museum has twenty-two different Elfin models including an Elfin Formula Ford that John Bowe raced.
Cooper died in the 1983 aged forty-six. “All he wanted to do was race cars and the only way that he could do it was to build them himself,” commented Hemming. “When he made one it often was so good looking that he would sell a whole lot of them.”
Tom Walkinshaw currently owns the Elfin factory. After Cooper died the factory was bought by a Tasmanian, then later sold and moved to Melbourne. Hemming bought the factory in 1997, owning it for ten years producing Clubmans and V8 Sportscars in conjunction with Holden.
What’s special about the Elfin brand? Hemming believes that there are several reasons. “ They were good looking and successful. Cooper wasn’t an engineer, he just applied logic and common sense. He looked at overseas cars and applied different ideas. He was probably closer to Lola than Lotus in design and look.”
*Over the 2009 Christmas and New Year break we will look at a number of cars that make up the grid of the 2009/10 MSC Tasman Revival Series
