Elfin

Elfin was an Australian sports-car and racing-car manufacturer founded in 1959 by Garrie Cooper in Edwardstown, South Australia. It became one of the country’s best-known specialist marques, producing a long line of single-seaters, sports-racers, and Clubman-style road cars. Across the Cooper era, Elfin built models such as the Streamliner, Mallala, Mono, 600, 700, MR5, MR6, and MR8, and its cars won Australian championships and major races in Formula Junior, Formula Ford, Formula 5000, Formula 2, and sports-car competition. The marque’s drivers included Frank Matich, John McCormack, Larry Perkins, Vern Schuppan, and James Hunt.

After Cooper’s death in 1982, the company passed to Don Elliott, Tony Edmondson, and John Porter, then to Murray Richards in 1993, and to Bill Hemming and Nick Kovatch in 1998. Under the later Melbourne-based operation, Elfin returned to road-car production with the Type 3 Clubman and then the Holden-backed MS8 Clubman and MS8 Streamliner, followed by the turbocharged T5 Clubman. Walkinshaw acquired the marque in 2006, but production had stopped by 2012. Elfin remained significant in Australian motoring history as the country’s longest-running sports-car marque and one of its most successful competition constructors.