Volume 27, Issue 05 Nov-Dec - Lotus Car Club of British Columbia

Mike Boyle – Europa TC & Esprit S4 V8 – Langley Cruise-In
The 10 th annual Langley Cruise-In was held on September 9 th of this year. This event is becoming one of the
premiere meets and car shows in the Pacific Northwest - if one is a devotee of the all-American, cast iron,
pushrod lump. It’s not the first show you think of for Lotus. But I did get an immersion in muscle-car culture while
growing up in Langley and the Esprit does have a V8 in it, so off I went to join the hotrods and rumblers. Kind of
like bringing civilization to the heathens.
The Cruise-In has an interesting way of arranging the cars. Check-in was at Kwantlen College and then we were
taken, in groups of about ten cars, by police escort to a display area in the downtown streets. From there,
volunteers took over to direct individual car placement. I dutifully waited my turn to park, and as soon as I looked
in the mirror for directions to back up to the curb, there was my brother-in-law grinning back at me. I guess
Langley still is kind of a small town.
Anyway, once parked I was into the usual car show routine of giving the car a quick touch-up and then figuring
out how to fill in the next eight hours until I could leave. Kind of like the VanDusen show but with fewer trees.
While I spent most of the time hanging around my car, I did take two or three laps to see the cars on display. It is
a big show, with something over 1000 entries. The approximate split is about 60% muscle-cars (ranging from
pristine to scruffy), 35% hotrods & modifieds, and 5% others. It is actually quite interesting to see the amount of
work that goes into these cars.
As a general comment, I can certainly appreciate the owners’ enthusiasm and admire their craftsmanship
although I have to admit that I sometimes think they have rocks in their heads when I see the end result. A prime
example of the last thought was the organizers’ “feature car” – the front end of a Studebaker grafted onto the
back end of an El Camino and the resulting chimera painted purple. Kind of like a bad trip from too much
burning rubber.
I don’t mean to slag the muscle cars and rods in general. While not really to my taste, there were a lot of well
turned out cars and I find that I can actually appreciate cars that I would not want to have. Must be a sign of
advancing age; kind of like discovering that broccoli isn’t toxic after all.
As for the Esprit, it turned out to be a hit with the crowd and drew a lot of attention. I was a bit surprised at how
many people knew what it was, or more accurately, I was surprised at how few people misidentified it. I did hear
one young fellow tell his friends that he had found a Ferrari and one other guy asked me if it was the kind of car
that Magnum drove, but that was about it for real clangers. Kind of like discovering that the heathens aren’t quite
so dumb after all.
All in all, the Cruise-In is a worth attending at least once. The show is well organized and there are some cars
like ours, with a group display from the Langley Area Mostly British club that included our old friend Dave
Barron’s 1948 Bentley. I think it is useful to occasionally go beyond the specific horizons of Lotus, or even the
somewhat broader horizons of sports cars, and can recommend it to others in the club on that basis. While I
may have had a bit of an advantage in “returning to my youth” in Langley, it was a good event. Kind of like
finding a little bit of enlightenment.
LCCBC Volume 27 – Issue 5 / November – December, 2006 Page 16