Dude, here’s my car | It’s no myth, this Elfin is the real deal

This little shining red vehicle packs a powerful punch.

The MS8 currently on display at MOVE in Kialla belongs to former Shepparton race-car driver Bryan Thomson.

Mr Thomson said it was the first MS8 ordered and delivered and the third Elfin in his impressive automotive collection.

“This display is an ongoing tribute to the founder of Elfin Sports Cars, Garrie Cooper,” he said.

“This is very special to me, as I personally worked with Garrie to complete my first Elfin; a very pretty ‘Mallala’, which ran second on debut in the South Australian Sports Car Championships in December, 1963.

MOVE’s Andrew Church says of the unique vehicle whose tiny doors point upward when opened, like an elf’s ears, that it’s a “fun little thing to drive”.

“You don’t get in it, you have to put it on, because it’s so small,” he said, climbing awkwardly behind the wheel.

Elfin Sports Cars dates back to 1959, when it was originally founded by Cooper.

Cooper and Elfin became known in Australian motorsport in the 1970s, with great success in the top category of Formula 5000.

The quiet achiever proved his work through the success of his racing cars, personally driven by Cooper and by a legion of other talented drivers.

He built the racing cars for more than 20 years in his home town of Adelaide, in a small factory — a world away from the hub of motorsport.

If he’d been born in England, France or Italy there may have been an Elfin Grand Prix team, and Cooper would most likely have been lauded for his innovative racing car designs, similar to how John Cooper and Colin Chapman were for their Cooper and Lotus cars.

When European teams and drivers came Down Under to race during their northern winters against the best drivers and teams Aussie motor racing put forward, Cooper triumphed in his V8-powered Formula 5000 monsters against the best in the world.

Some well-known drivers who tasted success behind the wheel of an Elfin include Frank Matich, John McCormack, Larry Perkins, John Bowe, Vern Schuppan and James Hunt.

Cooper built racing cars because he loved racing and had dreamed of it since he was a child.

His company was the second-largest manufacturer of racing cars in the world in the late 1960s.

Sadly, he died suddenly while working on a customer’s car on Anzac Day in 1982 from a ruptured aortic aneurysm, aged 46.

“In 1996 I acquired the ex-John Bowe/James Hunt MR8 F5000, and won the National ‘Gold Cup’ series for historic F5000s that year,” Mr Thomson said.

The Elfin MS8 Streamliner was designed by Elfin Sports Cars and styled by the Holden Design team.

It was part of a collaboration between Elfin and Holden that saw design concepts revealed at the 2004 Melbourne Motor Show.

The Streamliner was one of two models in the MS8 Series.

The other was an open-wheel track racer, named a Clubman.

Both models were powered by Holden's Gen III 5.7-litre V8 engine and featured race-style wishbone suspension, large brakes, and a tubular space-frame construction.

“When the Elfin MS8 series was displayed at the 2004 Melbourne Motor Show, I thought, ‘This is what Garrie Cooper always wanted to do’,” Mr Thomson said.

He just “had to have one” and ordered it on the spot.

Elfin was sold to Tom Walkinshaw of Holden Special Vehicles in 2007.

When he died soon after, the entire Elfin project was shelved.

The magic lives on with Mr Thomson’s MS8 at MOVE.