Notes:
Frank G. Nichols was the founder of Elva Engineering, a manufacturer of racing cars. The marque Elva, whose name comes from a contraction of the French phrase elle va ("she goes"), was founded in 1955 and, for a decade, was one of the World’s most successful makers of production racing cars.
An East Sussex, southern England, native, Frank George Edwin Nichols left the school at the age of 14 and in 1939 he joined the Territorial Army, serving in action in France, with the 58th Field Artillery at the outbreak of World War II. He was evacuated from Dunkirk and was at El Alamein and Benghazi where he was badly injured. After recovering, he was sent to the RASC on the transport side and after spells in Italy and Greece was demobbed. After he left the Army, Nichols opened a second-hand car business in Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex, where he specialised in sporting machinery.
It wasn't long wafter the end of World War II that Frank Nichols became interested in motor sport and started racing, firstly driving a Lotus VI and then a Ford Ten-engined CSM (Chapman Sports Motors) two-seater, which was built nearby. He enjoyed some success in his short competition career, even winning a nationmal race at brands Hatch in 1954, but soon he decided to go into car manufacture. Nichols formed a company to build racing cars, which was called Elva Engineering, based in Bexhill-on-Sea and later moved to Rye, East Sussex, United Kingdom.
The first Elva car was a smart two-seater with all-enveloping aluminum bodywork. In the following years, Elva cars enjoyed enormous success in competition, mainly in the United States. The marque remained relatively undervalued in Britain, where Lotus, Cooper and Lola became the firms which captured the imagination, perhaps because they were successful in the single-seater categories. After producing a series of fine Formula Junior cars, Elva concentrated largely on production sportscars, attempting to establish itself on a sound commercial basis.
In 1958 Elva Engineering also produced a popular road-going sports racer called Courier, powered by a 1.5-litre MGA engine. In 1962, due to financial problems Trojan Ltd. of Purley, Surrey, started building the car under licence. Among the drivers who raced the car, was Mark Donohue who at the start of his career won the US Road Racing Championship at the wheel of an Elva Courier.
Chuck Dietrich was the purchaser of the first Elva racing car exported to the United States, with which he scored may victories. Later, Carl Haas was Elva agent in the midwest of the United States since the mid-fifties. In November 1964, Frank Nichols signed an agreement with Bruce McLaren to produce the McLaren M1 customers under license at the Elva workshops in Rye.
Shortly later, Frank Nichols sold his interest in Elva to Peter Agg's Trojan Ltd. and left the motorsport scene to concentrate on game fishing. His involvement in boats led him to building the beautiful "Brede" class lifeboats for the RNLI until he retired with poor health. A man with a great character and determination, he passed away on 05 July 1997, at the age of 76. |
