For 1970 Lotus introduced the Series IV version of it’s popular kit car the Lotus Seven with straight edge styled fiber glass body panels replacing the aluminium body work of the first three incarnations of the model which had evolved since 1957.
Three engine options were offered with the kits Ford 1300 GT, 1600 GT and Lotus big valve twin cam as used in the Lotus Europa Twin Cam, today’s featured car has the 1600cc / 97.6 cui motor which produces 85 hp more than double that of the 1957 Lotus Seven.
The Wolferace alloy wheels are not standard but were available in 1970 when this car was built.
Amazingly this 42 year old car has only 68,000 miles on the clock from new.
Around 1,000 Series IV Sevens were built the last kits being supplied to Caterham’s in Kent,UK and Steel Brothers in Christchurch, New Zealand where the last kit was built. After Caterham ran out of Series IV kit’s, with the agreement of Lotus, they started developing versions of the older Lotus Seven Series III design, something which they still do to this day manufacturing vehicles for both road and track.
Thanks for joining me on this “Seven 4 The 70’s” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be visiting Silverstone for a six hour endurance race. Don’t forget to come back now !