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The Lotus Seven was launched in 1957, after the Lotus Eleven was in limited production. The Seven name was left over, due to a model that was abandoned by Lotus; a car that would have seen Lotus entering Formula Two with a Riley-engined single-seater in 1952 or 1953. However, the car was completed around Chapman's chassis as a sports car by its backers and christened the Clairmonte Special.
Based on Chapman's first series-produced Lotus 6, the Seven was powered by a 40 bhp Ford Side-valve 1,172 cc engine. It was mainly for lower budget club racing on short tracks (750 motor club).
The Lotus Seven Series 2 (S2) followed in 1960, and the Series 3 (S3) in 1968. In 1970, Lotus radically changed the shape of the car to create the slightly more conventional sized Series 4 (S4), with a squarer fibreglass shell replacing most of the aluminium bodywork. It also offered some "luxuries" as standard, such as an internal heater matrix. The S4 model was not widely welcomed, and Lotus sold few cars.
The British tax system of the time (Purchase Tax) meant that the car could be supplied as a kit (known as "completely knocked down" or CKD) without attracting the tax surcharge that would apply if sold in assembled form. Tax rules specified that assembly instructions could not be included, but in a typical Chapman-inspired piece of lateral thinking, there was no rule covering the inclusion of disassembly instructions. Hence all the enthusiast had to do was to follow these in reverse.
In 1973, Lotus decided to shed fully its "British tax system"-inspired partial kit car image and concentrate on limited series motor racing cars. As part of this plan, it sold the rights to the Seven to its only remaining agents Caterham Cars. After a brief period producing the Series 4, including assembly of the last "kits" supplied by Lotus, Caterham introduced their version of the Series 3, and have been manufacturing and refining this car ever since as the Caterham Seven.
To this day, this is one of the most popular kit cars you can get, and I must say, I'd love to have one smile
And the most powerful to date, the Caterham X330 concept...
330 horsepwoer in a 1,000 lb car XD
X330 Specs
