Elfin MS8 Streamliner 50th Anniversary: Classic MOTOR

It’s kiddies’ maths, but I punch the figures into the calculator twice just to make sure.

This article first published in MOTOR Magazine May 2007.

So, 1100kg divided by 340kW equals – whoa! – 3.23 kilograms per kilowatt! That’s a stunning boast for Elfin Sports Cars’ MS8 Streamliner 50th Anniversary ‘Number One’, and is certain to put the fear of God into the supercar competition.

Think globally, and only at motoring’s bleeding edge – Bugatti Veyron, Koenigsegg, Radical, Caterham – will you find a more impressive pound-to-poke ratio.

Y’see, this ‘Number One’ is a bit extra special. Elfin is only building five 50th Anniversary examples, and they’re not created equal. Eighty percent of this very limited production is likely share the same shiny, oily bits with the regular MS8 Streamliner, meaning 245kW/465Nm 5.7-litre Chevy LS1 power.

Believe it or not, 340kW at 5600rpm is a fairly lazy state of tune for an LS1, an engine which can safely cope with a more serious power tickle. But would you need it when there’s already a whopping 660Nm on tap to help propel little more than a tonne off the mark, complete with fire, brimstone, and a Ride of the Valkyries soundtrack?

“It’ll nail 100km/h in about three seconds flat,” says ESC CEO Chris Payne.

Uh-huh.

“And it’ll do a 400-metre sprint in 10s.”

Uh-huh. So, can I have the keys, then?

“Nope.”

All five Fiddys will come finished in a special ‘Cooper Gold’ hue – so named after Elfin’s founder, Garrie Cooper – and feature unique bonnet spears, and polished 18-inch wheels loaded with semi-slick Advan rubber.

Inside is awash with bright burgundy, including ‘aircraft grade’ leather trim (whatever that is) on the chunky-bolster seats which in production form are far superior in support and comfort over the early prototype design. Add a smattering of polished metal and there’s a sort of retro 1970s Aussie muscle car vibe going on that, with all respect to the potentially offended, would look right at home on an HQ Monaro.

Two hard fabric ‘gurney bubbles’, as Payne calls them, latch to either side of the T-top’s centre spine. No full roof? A virtual impossibility due to Streamliner’s gymnastic requirements for occupant entry and egress.

The roof can be removed via four bolts, and is interchangeable with the topless roadster’s flat deck-lid.

It’s only a mild departure from GM design maestro Mike Simcoe’s original sketches, altered to include a subtle bobtail and flush rear glass (Simcoe’s had recessed glass), which allows clearance for a full FIA-approved roll cage – a minor feature, you’d reckon, but one that was key to green lighting hard-top production, and to Elfin’s future plans for MS8 Streamliner.

Five decades on, the new MS8 50th comes standard with – surprise, surprise – a hard lid. And room for a cage. No points for guessing why…

“We always intended to take the Streamliner racing,” says long-time ESC technical director, Nick Kovatch. After all, motorsport is the company’s backbone.

“[Motorsport bodies] CAMS and FIA stipulate that you can’t race convertibles or open-tops in production car-based classes,” adds ESC CEO Chris Payne. “With a coupe, now we can.”

Although the $128,500 anniversary model is the only one to get the coupe lid as standard, the top will be offered as a cost option on base Streamliner models. As will an FIA-approved roll cage. That way any Streamliner owner has the option of racing a car that was intended for hard-core circuit work right from the drawing board.

This is evident in MS8’s design and engineering. Each MS8 begins life as a pile of steel tubing in the Elfin factory, and then hand-crafted from the ground up over a period of three months. The space-frame construction is extremely rigid, and the use of waify GRP (glass reinforced plastic) minimises Streamliner’s weight.

Same goes for the suspension: the chrome-moly aerofoil front and seamless tubular steel rear double A-arms are rose joined to the chassis, with aluminium uprights locating huge six-piston AP Racing calipers at the business end and slightly smaller four-potters in the rear.

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So the core engineering is up to the task of a little blown fettling, and the astonishing performance potential that brings. But… the official line is that Number One, or any supercharged MS8 for that matter, is “for track use only”, and Elfin says that it’s only due to costly ADR approval for such a potentially low volume of road-going versions.

Yes, Elfin will build you one – $140,500 will park Number One in your pit garage – but customers will have to source engineering certification for rego independently.

Of course, it’d be a true blue travesty for a foreigner to lay any claims on what looks to be Australia’s most ballistic production car to date. And I, for one, will happily be the first Aussie to confirm or deny Elfin’s performance claims for a blown Streamliner, and on any decent blacktop between Bahrain and Bristol.

That’s a hint, Robbo…