Elva was a sports and racing car manufacturing company based in Bexhill, then Hastings and Rye, East Sussex, United Kingdom.

"[3] The cylinder head for the 1,172 cc Ford engine, devised by Malcolm Witts and Harry Weslake, featured overhead inlet valves.

"[8] The Elva cars were offered and raced with the 1,100 cc Coventry-Climax FWA engine as standard but went through various bodywork and suspension changes up to the Mark III of 1958.

Haas was invited to England to drive an Elva Mk III in the Tourist Trophy at Goodwood on 13 September 1958, where he finished twelfth overall.

Stuart Lewis-Evans drove the same works car, registered MBW 616, to fastest time of the day at the Bodiam Hill Climb in East Sussex on 11 October 1958.

As far as the design of the new Mark IV was concerned, in the words of Carl Haas "The major change is an all-new independent rear suspension utilizing low-pivot swing axles.

49 driven by Burdette Martin, Chuck Dietrich and Bill Jordan, took second place in Class G completing an excellent outing for the new 1959 season model.

Three Mark IV cars took part in the Chichester Cup at the Goodwood Easter Meeting with Scots racer Tom Dickson starting on the front row alongside three of the new Lola Mk1s.

At the 11th International Trophy meeting at Silverstone on 2 May 1959 Tom Dickson finished a creditable 3rd in the 1,100cc sports racing event, sandwiched between the works Lola Mk1s in first and second and the Lotus Eleven of Peter Arundell in fourth.

Further success came on 21 June 1959 when Arthur Tweedale and Bob Davis won the Marlboro Six Hour Endurance Race in Maryland driving the No.

One notable occasion saw Burdette Martin's Elva MkIV fitted with a 1,475cc Coventry-Climax FPF F2 engine driven with some success by Ed Crawford in Round 8 of the 1959 USAC Road Racing Championship at Meadowdale.

Crawford was a renowned Porsche and Briggs Cunningham pilot and took the Elva Mk IV to an emphatic win, lapping the field in the 1,500 cc qualifying heat against some impressive opposition.

The last Mk V chassis won a number of important races in the US midwest driven by Dick Buedingen, including the 1961 Elkhart Lake 500 teamed with Carl Haas.

[16] After financial problems caused by the failure of the US distributor, Frank Nichols started a new company in Rye, Sussex in 1961 to continue building racing cars.

The Elva Mk VI rear-engined sports car, still sticking with 1,100 cc Coventry Climax power, made its competition debut at Brands Hatch on Boxing Day, 1961, driven by Chris Ashmore, finishing second to the three-litre Ferrari of Graham Hill.

[22] Porsche then developed for Elva the so-called Fuhrmann engine ( type 547) with four overhead camshafts, which received, among other things, a cooling fan wheel made of plastic lying horizontally above the crankcase.

"The Elva-Porsche is based on the Mark VII Elva, but redesigned aft of the front section to take the 1,700 cc Porsche air-cooled flat-four unit and its horizontal cooling fan.

[23] In 1964, Porsche entered an Elva Mark VII chassis with the 8-cylinder Type 771 racing engine in the European Hill Climb Championship.

Edgar Barth won the opening round of the European Hill Climb Championship on 7 June 1964, at Rossfeld in southern Germany in an Elva-Porsche flat-eight sports car.

[25] The cars were placed throughout the seven-round series with Herbert Muller winning at the final round at Sierre Crans Montana in Switzerland on 30 August 1964.

Because of the Elva's poorer driving characteristics, with its frame possibly too heavily loaded by the 8-cylinder engine, Barth started in the following races again with the old Porsche RS 61 and, like the previous year, won the sports car class of the championship.

"[31] Sporadic success continued for Elva in the early part of that year, with Jim Hall winning at Sebring and Loyer at Montlhéry.

The Mk 1 used a 1500 cc MGA or Riley 1.5 litre engine in a ladder chassis with Elva designed independent front suspension.

The engine was set well back in the chassis to help weight distribution, which produced good handling but encroached on the cockpit making the car a little cramped.

The final version, the fixed head coupé Mk IV T type used Lotus twin-cam engines with the body modified to give more interior room.

[39] Ken Sheppard Customised Sports Cars of Shenley, Hertfordshire acquired the Elva Courier from Trojan in 1965 but production ended in 1968.

[43] It weighed 11 long hundredweight (559 kg) and had 185 bhp (138 kW; 188 PS) so would have had very impressive performance but was deemed too costly to put into series production.