Springtime, rain-washed and cool, has unfolded with pleasant and unusual laziness this year in Boulder. Plenty of rare cars have shown up at the Sunday Boulder Coffee and Classics events in recent years, but this 1938 Carlton-bodied Lea-Francis* at the April 28 show may be the rarest, because it's the only one bodied by Carlton. It was in immaculate condition, and would have scored extra points if Coffee and Classics had a "cars you've never heard of, but probably want anyway" category...
Just what is a Lea-Francis, anyway? It fits into the group of British specialist makes that thrived between World Wars 1 and 2, and was thinned out by bankruptcies and mergers after the second great war. Think of Alvis and Lagonda, for example. Unlike some of the other independent makes, Lea-Francis concentrated on small, sporting cars, and made its own engines, building 185 of the Hyper Sports model before being bankrupted by the Great Depression. After a reorganization, the company announced a new model in 1937...
This had engines designed by Hugh Rose, an engineer who had designed a twin-cam engine for Riley. For Lea-Francis, Rose designed a similar engine with twin cams on the sides of the engine block, and rocker-operated valves in hemisphercal combustion chambers. Nicknamed the "underhead cam" engine, in 12 hp form (that's taxable, not real hp) it had 1.5 liters displacement. There was also a 14 hp at just under 1.8 liters. Only 83 of the new "LeaFs" were built before WWII stopped car production in England.
This car, license plate FYW 622, appears to be the same car that was shown in pre-restored condition on an auction website, and featured in our blog post* on Lea-Francis. It appears that the restoration crew has had an epic success with this car...
A Renault Turbo 2 showed up to confound and amaze. The mid-engined 1.4 and 1.5 liter turbocharged rally cars were based upon the Renault R5 front drive 4-seaters and featured body design by Marc Deschamps and Marcello Gandini at Bertone. The homologation specials, built as the Turbo from 1980-82, featured wild Bertone interiors with red and blue color schemes. The "production" Turbo 2 built from '83-'86 had a tamer interior without the special Bertone seats and instruments. These were real production cars, with over 1,300 of the Turbo, and over 1,800 of the Turbo 2 built.
The mid-engined Turbos sacrificed 2 rear seats for that engine placement, and predicted the obstructed engine access on modern mid-engined GTs like the Porsche Cayman...
The Oscar Mayer Weinermobile showed up to contest the crowd-pleasing style and rarity of those sports machines. It's powered by a small block Chevy V8; acceleration figures were not quoted by the Oscar Mayer crew...
...but nobody else was offering hot dog samples, and that counted for something.
Alfa Romeo fans showed up at the April event in strength, with a silver GTV6, a rare (in the US) Type 916 front-drive roadster in yellow, and a Milano sedan tricked out for racing.
This Lotus Evora showed up at the May 19 event. Built from 2010-21 to contest the mid-engined GT category dominated in the US by the Porsche Cayman, the Evora was powered by 3,5 liter Toyota V6 engines available with supercharging. Transmissions offered were 6-speeds, in manual or automatic form.
This Triumph GT6 Series 3 was offered from late 1970 through the end of 1973, and was a sort of fastback version of the green Spitfire roadster parked just beyond it, with a 2-liter inline six replacing the Spitfire's four. Both cars shared the same Michelotti styling and all-independent suspension with swing axles at the rear.
No Coffee and Classics would be complete without a Citroen, or some Ferraris. Here a DS 21 is flanked by a red Testarossa flat-12 and a silver V6 Dino 246.
This Alfa Romeo 4C mid-engined coupe, a lightweight competitor to the Porsche Cayman and Lotus Evora with 1.75 liter turbocharged 4-cylinder power, was offered in coupe form from 2013-19 and as a spider from 2015-20. It's relatively rare in the US, but over 9.000 cars were built.
The Austin-Healey* 100-6 was built by BMC with 2.6 liter inline six from 1956-59, while its older brother, the 100-4 to the right, was built with 2.6 liter inline four from 1953-56. Curvy, low-slung styling was by Gerry Coker.
The 100-4 was the last Healey to have the fan-shaped grille; the racing 100S model featured disc brakes and an oval grille with vertical chrome bars in place of this fan shape.
The "Big Healeys" showed up in strength at the May event; this one flanks its little brother, an Austin Healey Sprite, nicknamed Bug Eye for obvious reasons, built from 1958-61. Also a Gerry Coker design, it was planned for retractable headlights, but BMC cut the budget for those, giving their entry-level sports car plenty of character. A 948 cc inline four provided power; this car has been upgraded to 1,275 cc, as in some Mini Cooper rally cars. The Porsche Turbo with Slant Nose option takes a different approach to design, with the somewhat anodyne sloping front (similar to 80s wedge designs like the Mazda RX-7) at odds with the curves and ellipses of the 911 body shell.
The Big Healeys show off their tidy rear contours. Rear ground clearance was so scant that the cars were famous for scraping exhausts on steep driveways...
This BMW 2800 CS appeared in spotless, original condition, including original alloy wheels.
The car had been upgraded, though, to a 3.5 liter inline six, and disc brakes from the later 3.0 CS replaced the rear drums.
This Triumph was one of a quartet of the British sports cars to show up at the May event. A Spitfire, it's been modified with a vented hood with covered headlights in the style of the Spitfire Le Mans racers, and that hood covers a Honda VTEC 2 liter four making around 240 hp. The builder replaced the Spitfire swing-axle rear with a fully-independent setup. This car was very much in the fun spirit of the event. For the schedule of Boulder Coffee and Classics event and an interview with organizer Mike Burroughs, you will want to visit fuelfed.wordpress.com.
*Footnote:
Our survey of Lea-Francis history appeared under the title "Forgotten Classic: Lea-Francis, the Underdog with the Underhead Cam Engine", on June 15, 2023. We surveyed Healey history in "Forgotten Classic: Healey, Before and After Austin", on October 17, 2022.
Photo Credits:
All photos are by the author, except the 5th from top, which is from bonhams.com.
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