Petrolicious – Lotus Super Seven Review – Video

 

“There’s a certain demand for a driver’s car that optimizes handling weight, exposure to the elements, and that very visceral experience that sort of makes you have to take a shower after driving it—for all the right reasons—you’ve got rocks in your hair and everything else.”

Geoff Wise’s Lotus Super 7 is not only an elemental sports car, but an opportunity for curious onlookers to wonder, “What the–?”

“People will just come up and talk to you,” he says.

In a first for Petrolicious, you’re looking at a ‘kit’ car. In order to get around a hefty import tax on British vehicles imported into the U.S., the car was supplied in part form, along with ‘disassembly’ instructions from Lotus that were intended to be followed in reverse… As a result, many 7s have been developed, customized, and lovingly altered over the years to suit its owner’s wishes.

Wise loves driving, so this 7 has been built for that—can you get a more pure driving experience than this ex-race car for the street? Probably not; the Lotus 7 is a legend for a reason, after all.

About the Lotus Super Seven

The Lotus Seven is a small, simple, lightweight two-seater open-top sports car produced by Lotus Cars (initially called Lotus Engineering)[2] between 1957 and 1972.

It was designed by Lotus founder Colin Chapman and has been considered the embodiment of the Lotus philosophy of performance through low weight and simplicity. The original model was highly successful with more than 2,500 cars sold,[3] due to its attraction as a road legal car that could be used for clubman racing.[4]

After Lotus ended production of the Seven, Caterham bought the rights and today Caterham make both kits and fully assembled cars based on the original design.

The Lotus Seven design has spawned a host of imitations on the kit car market, generally called Sevens or sevenesque roadsters.