It was an interesting mix of truth & fiction. It is true that Chapman
did his cars out of numerical sequence. (I've got a book somewhere that
lays that out.) The 7 came after 11, for instance.
The hodgepodge of who did what when and where is totally mixed up. A
Mr. Lotus. BZZZT! No, of course. Let's see:
"Yeah, the Lotus? It's actually a Donnelly (this could be true, there
are lots of Lotus 7 clones), built in Canada from the
original plans. See, when Mr. Lotus died in 1963,
(Chapman died much later in 1982) he had the Elan and Europa
already on the drawing board, (7s were first built in about 1958 and
on--mine has a build date in 1960--through 1968-70 when the TwinCam 7
was built--called the Series 3, with a black logo to commemorate Jim
Clark's death).
and didn't care about the Seven anymore.
Somewhat true, he was going into more expensive, higher-end market cars
such as the Elan which came out in 1962. But the Series 4 was
manufactured from 1970, 1973; and the Caterham 7 is still in production
from 1973.
He
was the designer/driver of the cars, and had these two builders,
Caterham and
Westfield both working for him.
After his death, Caterham bought the rights to the 7, and there was
some sort of a lawsuit by Westfield. All happening in the 80s, after
Chapman's death.
Mr. Caterham and Mr. Westfield went to court in 1963 to see which one
would
get the rights to all the tooling.
See above.
There's about 50 different people
building replicas all over the world.
True, and they're pretty easy to build...just find a good one to take
your measurements from.
This one's really nice. It's got all
Toyota running gear, about $6500 in carbs and head work on a 2TC Hemi
engine.
It makes over 200 HP and weighs 1100 lbs. It's pretty much unbeatable
on a
roadrace track or autocross course. I only want $25,000 for it."
I'm hoping the value is growing...
> Okay, young'uns, point out the errors in the Lotus tale! I count at
> least
> five, maybe seven... Pat, how many do you see?
Well, I didn't count them.
--Pat K
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