Peter Egan at LOG 29

[MickOpalak]

Peter Egan at LOG 29

Peter Egan, At-large editor for Road & Track magazine, is basically a car guy just like us with a few key differences. First, his observation skills are amazingly acute. He sees things the rest of us walk right past without noticing. The details and nuances of the car experience are his special turf. Then, secondly, he can put those observations into well crafted, and frequently humorous, sentences that capture the experience in a way that have the rest of us chuckling and saying “Oh yeah…I’ve been there!” And, finally, his literary and experience memory library is enormous so that he can add the rich detail of context to the story to make it stick with us…a lesson without the preachiness.

Yet, at his heart, he is really a “car guy”. My first memory of Peter’s gift was a story in R&T called, I think, “The Glory Days of the Late Great Straight Eight”. It was a tale of Peter and a friend of his, at about age 15, who found an old Buick in the scrap yard, and bought it believing they could take all the unnecessary weight off the car and make it into a competitive car at the local dirt track. Now I may have the details wrong as this was at least 25 years ago, but the spirit of the story is still with me. A hilarious recounting of the exuberance of youth reaching far beyond their knowledge base on a project destined for failure. Sound like anything you and I have done? I have never seen the story reprinted, but if it is, it is really worth the read. The best racing season recap I have ever seen is another Egan masterpiece in one of the “Side Glances” reprint books (Get them NOW if you do not yet have them) where he talks about the decline of our standards as the season progresses. “Instead of going to that steak house out by the highway for dinner, we marvel that a tuna sandwich will float in a zip lock bag in our cooler” “We are reusing duct tape” “We decide to get just one more session out of the tires because both Visa and MasterCard refuse to take our calls”

Peter is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin with a degree in Journalism and with a small town newspaper publisher for a father. He couldn’t get a job in his chosen field upon graduation. Instead he went to work for Foreign Car Specialists in Madison, WI where he learned about repairing and loving British sports cars. He remembers that a lot of Lotus Twin Cam cars would come in for water pump repairs…like the fellow who got a great deal on a Europa for $1,800 which “only” needed a water pump. He then found out that the entire engine/transmission had to be removed to get to it. Not such a great deal any more, sigh. Always writing while working at his “day job” Peter was finally picked up by Cycle World and then by Road & Track, luckily for all of us.

He says he grew to admire Lotus cars because “They were always ahead of their time. The Lotus effort had an energy level that was contagious. It was the British car spirit made modern and they appeal to those of us who have a minimalist approach to cars, boats, and airplanes. We give up a little something and get more”. This is especially true in the Lotus Seven, and that was Peter’s first Lotus.

After three Seven restoration projects, two of which were abandoned (“I began restoring the Seven, but a sudden financial crisis [I think I wanted to go to the movies] caused me to sell it to my fearless mechanic friend Bruce Livermore. Also, I'd become discouraged by the sheer magnitude of the undertaking.”) he had success, (“I set a goal of having it done in time for the 1991 Monterey Historic Races. I took it to Chris Beebe's shop, Foreign Car Specialists, and we pulled about three months of all-nighters and weekends, and got it done. We towed it all the way back to California, stopping just once to sleep for six hours, and arrived at the track with about 15 minutes to spare.”). He sold his Seven after vintage racing it for several years and moved on to do a Porsche and then a Jaguar restoration. But the Lotus “itch” never went away.

His friend John Jaeger had an Elan which Peter got to drive. He thought it had marvelous handling and power to weight ratio. It had a similar feel to a Seven though the Elan had weather protection and better aerodynamics, putting it on his “short list of cars I’d like to own”. And along the way he built and drove a Westfield Eleven from California to Wisconsin and back (“Northeast by Westfield” R&T, June, 1984) and shared Gil Nickel’s Lotus 23 in a vintage enduro, cementing his appreciation for the marque. After one of his articles praising Lotus appeared, he got an email from a fellow who had an Elan that he had bought new and he and his wife had used as a daily driver until the chassis rusted and they parked it. As Peter puts it, “another stray needing a home.” And with space in his garage, he picked it up and brought it home in the middle of a blizzard. He reports it this way: “Yes, after owning three Lotus Sevens in my life I was finally stepping up one generation in the Lotus family and buying an Elan. (By the time I’m 90, I’ll probably have a Europa)”. The original owner had given the Elan to his wife after they were married, saying “She was driving a Sprite but it was so unreliable I made her sell it and gave her the Elan so she could get somewhere without a breakdown. Now there’s a story you don’t hear very often. When you need to provide a loved one with dependable everyday transportation, ‘Lotus’ is not the first word that springs to mind. Nor does ‘Elan’. Even ‘V2Rocket’ is higher on the list, as is ‘Mining camp nitro-glycerin truck’ ”. That’s pure Egan with a suitably jaded take before starting a restoration.

Now nearing completion, after many years of effort, Peter and Barbara plan to drive the freshly finished Elan to LOG 29 for its debut. I, for one, can hardly wait as I have been visualizing it through Peter’s descriptions and stories for a long time. He assures me that “Short of disaster, it will be there!” He will no doubt have several adventures to recount on the exclusive Thursday night “Chat” session for the early arrivals at the Wynfrey. Make sure you are among those who will get to meet this charming, delightful “Car Guy” – specifically a “Lotus Guy”, Peter Egan.

[RSduce]

Thats AWESOME, Im a big Egan fan, cant wait until LOG at Barber next year, should be the best one yet!

[shovel383]

I met Doc Roberts at a PCA event at TGPR earlier this year. He really got me excited about going to LOG. This announcement just sealed the deal. I won't miss this one!

[Cegan09]

Originally Posted by RSduce

Im a big Egan fan,

this is an interesting thread, and that comment is funny, mostly because that is my last name.


excellent post, maybe i'll make an effot to attend this year.

[carl]

I've read Peters column for years and always enjoyed it and could personally identify with him. I'm from Wisconsin ( Milw,) and moved to California(Santa Barbara). Peter is from Wisconsin and moved to CA. for 20+ years and moved back to Wisc. At the present time I don't think I'll move back but time will tell. carl