I first heard of Evantes when I was auto-crossing an MG Midget back in the 80's. A friend that raced another Midget had a Lotus Elan and that became my dream car. He had read about Evantes and told me about them. Hand built to order one at a time in England, they were around $34,000 back then. I couldn't afford one, didn't think I'd ever even see one, and never gave it a second thought. But I did keep looking at Elans and hoped to own one someday.

Twenty years later I was doing one of my regular searches for Elans on the Internet and found an Evante for sale. By then I had completely forgotten about them. But this seemed to be a great car and overcame all the objections to the Elans I had come across in the past. It had a better built body, significantly more power, better handling, a better ride, and the interior was nicer. And it looked really beautiful - like an Elan setup for racing with some body modifications. It wasn't long before I contacted the owner, made arrangements to take a look, and purchased it. I didn't remember my friend telling me about them until several months later.

I purchased the car from Jay Supnick of Rochester, NY on 10/14/2004. There were pictures of my car and Jay on the old UK Evante club website. Jay purchased the car from Rudy Luther's Downtown Pontiac-Jaguar in Minneapolis, MN on 10/27/2000. It was traded in to the dealership for a Jaguar by the original owner, Roger Salway of St. Paul, MN on 7/22/2000.

Roger was friends with George Robinson, the creator of the Evante. He took his first drive in an Evante while visiting George. Sometime later, he imported an Evante to the US. They were hoping to market the car here. So this car was in effect, the North American Evante demonstrator. This was Roger's second venture into the car industry. Sometime before this he was a partner with Gilbern Cars.

I believe there are only two Evantes in the USA. The other Evante I know of in the USA is owned by Doug Antonelli of Raleigh, NC. Doug is the original owner of the car. It is currently for sale on the same website where I found mine.

Info about my car:

SN: 8801001 (try explaining that to your local DMV and insurance company)
Color: Metallic Bluish Green
Interior: Walnut Dashboard and Trim. Beige Connolly Leather Seats and Dash Cover. Dark Green Wilton Wool Carpets
Currently has 10,777 Miles
Ordered with the 140 TC Engine, Limited Slip Diff

Jay Supnick had lots of work done to the car by Ritter Automotive in Penfield, NY. In addition to many miscellaneous part replacements, cosmetic work, and cleaning, the engine was bored slightly over, sleeved, and forged pistons were installed. Heavier springs with Leda fully adjustable shocks were installed. And an upgraded clutch was installed. I believe all parts were ordered from the UK (most from Vegantune) accept for the forged pistons (JE) and rings.

I recently ordered and installed uprated cams and adjustable cam sprockets from Vegantune to bring it up to the 170 TC spec. But, before this project was completed, we discovered that combustion gases were leaking past one of the block sleeves and into the cooling system. So - I've purchased an unused South African AX block, 5.23" Carrillo rods and an EN19 Crank to use for a new bottom end. The block was purchased from Gavin, a really nice guy in England and shipped here. The crankshaft and rods were purchased from Dave Bean Engineering. Their help and advice has been great.

The new block will be bored to 85 mm (no sleeves needed) which will give me 1760 cc. New JE forged pistons with a shorter compression height to accommodate the long rods will be used. All work is being done by a shop I feel REALLY lucky to have near me - Abacus Racing in Norfolk, VA. When it's all back together they'll put it on the chassis dyno for a day to dial in the cams and tune it all up. Richard Marshall at Vegantune tells me the cams will peak at about 7200 - 7500. I don't know if the longer rod lengths will have any effect on that or not - but they should give it a little more mid-range torque and a little more power than it would have otherwise. Bean Engineering says the bottom end should be bullet proof to 8000 RPM.

This site is a work in progress - as is my car. I'll be adding some better photos and more info in the future. I've found a couple of British car magazines from the 1980's that have articles about Evantes and I'll be adding them here as soon as I can get them scanned. Roger Salway recently sent me a scrap book of original photos and some other Evante bits. I've scanned it as a PDF here - Evante Book

Quick Update - The Evante is back on the road. Here is a short clip of a climb on the Blueridge Parkway. Parkway Climb

1/10/2008 - It's been a long time since I updated this. Some time ago I decided to convert to EFI and EDI. Several months later - here's some photos of my progress so far EFI Conversion. These photos were actually done a month or two ago. Another month or two and I'll be done.