Insevenheaven

Fast, fun, light and simple: the Caterham Seven, doyen of the kit-car market and grassroots motorsport, has reached its half-century. Few cars have been able to provide the Sevenʼs purity of purpose, no matter which engine, chassis or level of trim it has been equipped with. The Sevenʼs pared-down weight has always been key to that appeal – in its most basic form, todayʼs smallest-engined model is arguably the worldʼs lightest production car, tipping the scales at a sylphlike 440kg. And the Caterham Super Sevenʼs Colin Chapman-inspired design – an aluminium-clad, two-seater, cigar-shaped body around a tubular steel chassis, with the engine up front and drive to the rear wheels, developed from the third iteration of the 1957 original – has always embodied the Lotus founderʼs core tenet: ʻSimplify, then add lightness.ʼ With us at Bicester Heritageʼs test track are (funnily enough) seven of the most significant Sevens built across the past 50 years, ranging from a famous ʼ70s track star, via a 0-100mph-0 record-holder to a humble 1.4-litre K-series-powered entry model. Together, they tell an incredible story of survival against the odds.

In 1973, those odds were small. After the UK joined the European Economic Community at the start of the year, the Purchase Tax loophole gifted to impecunious enthusiasts prepared to build their own Lotus Sevens was abolished in favour of mandatory VAT on all vehicles, including those built from kits. Colin Chapman no longer wanted Lotus to be associated with car kits, so the change in regulations gave him the perfect excuse to ditch the Seven, by then in Series 4 guise, after 15 years of production. Caterham Cars was Lotusʼ sole remaining UK Seven agent, so it was perhaps inevitable that founder Graham Nearn purchased the modelʼs rights from the Hethel parent company. When Caterham recommenced S4 production, however, the new modelʼs carried-over boxy styling won few fans and, by 1974, Seven Cars Limited (as the company was then known) had reverted to the 1968-ʼ70 Series 3 design.

While the cost benefit of building your own Seven diminished once VAT was imposed, the premium for a Caterham-built car still encouraged plenty of DiY assemblies, but that changed around the turn of the millennium, as Simon Lambert, Caterhamʼs chief motorsport and technical officer, recalls: “When I joi