Description
This model, a McLaren-Elva MK1A, used a Lancer-supplied body over a unique chassis.
The “Blue Monster” is typical of the lack of proper engineering that often ruled the day in the 1960s. Would it have been tested against a couple of walls prior to being released, it could have been a better machine.
The chassis is rather flimsy, made of two thin aluminum side rails, with an enormous brass tubing machined at the rear pushed through two holes in the rails, then flared. The body-mounting aluminum plate is then affixed through two tabs sticking up from the side rails, then riveted. The front of the rails is held by nothing but… the loose axle. Meaning that the first impact against any wall will bend the rail towards the center of the car, and eventually after the average teenager has driven the thing, the axle will be free to move sideways by up to 3/4″, with the handling characteristics one can imagine.
The saving grace is that the body is extremely thick, limiting this unavoidable disaster some. What also saved most of the survivors is that they were not driven very much because they did not deliver what the name or packaging promised, so they were parked, as many, back in the slot car boxes, hardly being used again.
