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1964 Lotus Super Seven: A Lightweight Legacy
October 30, 2018
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Are their subtitles for this?
Yes. Hi the CC or closed caption button on YouTube. You’ll be good to go.
Lovely little film. Iconic car, and a knowledgeable owner. These are always my favorites. “Any suspension will work if you don’t let it.” is a favorite axiom attributed to Chapman. Blundell & Harty make reference to it in “A Multibody Systems Approach to Vehicle Dynamics”, Of course, Chapman was referring to over damped systems with excessive spring rates. When a car is as light as a Seven the suspension has to be correspondingly supple.
This whole group of cars is quite interesting and is very much alive. What about some others from this group, 400-euro-job. It would be interesting to hear from Exomotive about their Exocet. Keith Tanner, an engineer / designer / tuner at Flyin’ Miata in Colorado is expert with these cars. Some do 0-60 in 4 seconds. And there is the Westfield. The Catherham is well known. By dropping the weight of a car below 1,500 pounds / 700 kilograms interesting things start to happen. This is as true now as it was when the 7 was first built.
As a young boy growing up there was a guy that commuted past my house in his 7, rain or shine. No idea if it was real or kit but I’d try to time it so I could see him drive by as often as possible.
You could buy the 7 as kit, from Lotus, year ago. Apparently there was a significant reduction in tax if you bought your car as a box of parts. My recollection is that the tax applied if the box of parts contained assembly instructions, but not otherwise. Apparently Lotus provided ‘disassembly instructions’ would could be followed in reverse.
Here is one of the many accounts of that:
I love that these cars can connect generations of family. Ive got two young kids and I can see them starting to take an interest in our classic Porsche. It’s quite a nice legacy to leave behind I think.
Talk about timing. Just bought a 1963 Super Seven this week. Thank you 400-euro-job!