The Lotus Seven is a roadster from Lotus, built from 1957 to 1973, at the height of the post-war boom. Under the bonnet: 1172 cc I4. Colin Chapman drew it.
How it came about
The Lotus Seven is a sports car produced by the British manufacturer Lotus Cars (initially called Lotus Engineering) between 1957 and 1973. The Seven is an open-wheel car with two seats and an open top. 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, due to its attraction as a road legal car that could be used for clubman racing. After Lotus ended production of the Seven in 1973, Caterham bought the rights and today Caterham makes both kits and fully assembled cars based on the original design known as the Caterham 7. The Lotus Seven design has spawned a host of imitations on the kit car market, generally called Sevens or Sevenesque roadsters.
The hardware
Power comes from 1172 cc I4. It weighs 750 kg. It shifts through a manual. The layout matters: the engine sits behind the driver and ahead of the rear axle, which puts the mass in the middle of the car and is why mid-engined cars change direction the way they do. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Family and rivals
Its family tree is legible: it took over from the Lotus Mark VI; its successor was the Caterham 7; assembly was at Hornsey, London. Its contemporaries in the catalogue — the Fiat 500, the Nissan Skyline, the Nissan Patrol — show what else the money bought that year. Its Lotus stablemates include the Lotus 100T and the Lotus 101.
What it costs now
There is no federal ownership record for the Lotus Seven — it predates the complaint database or was never sold in the United States — so MotorJury publishes no running-cost figure for it. For a car of this age the price is set by the collector market and the condition of the individual example, not by a formula.