Elf magic

Sir,

As an ex-employee of Elf Oil UK Ltd and Lotus Cars, I thought that with the impending demise of the brand we know in the UK as Elf— it’s being swallowed up by Total — this might be a good time to run a feature outlining the involvement Elf has had over the past 30 years in motorsport.

Elf has played a large part in all aspects of the sport from rallying to F1, and has supported some wonderful teams and drivers. Most of the top drivers from Jackie Stewart to Michael Schumacher have worn the Elf trepan logo.

I have copies of Motor Sport covering the past 35 years and you would be hard pushed to open an edition that did not have within it a picture showing an Elf logo, either on a car or stitched onto a driver’s overalls.

I believe in the early days of Elf involvement with the Tyrrell team a lot of the technical input was from the UK arm of Elf, although the larger involvement in later years was French, both technically and financially.

I am, yours etc,
John Parramint, Woodton, Suffolk