Lotus Seven Club
Michigan, USA Area Meeting
May 10, 2008

Back in September of 2007, while attending the 50th Anniversary of the Lotus Seven event in England, I was asked by club president Steve Winterberg if I would consider being the Michigan area rep for the Lotus Seven club of England. I am not sure that I had even started tipping pints by the time I talked with him, but for some reason I told Steve "sure, why not?".

Well, not having any idea who would come or how I would invite people, I decided that a safe way to go would be to invite any Seven owners I could find to come to a gathering of my local British Car Club, the British Motoring Club of Mid Michigan. Well, the BMC's first gathering of the year was the "Spring Clean Up Day" on May 10, and with their blessing, I sent invites to a few Lotus Seven owners and various Lotus clubs that I am on the fringes of...

I had three confirmed Lotus Seven owners coming. David Howe, whose own car was not on the road yet, arranged to meet me at my home where he could drive with me in my Seven to the event. On the Friday before, when I was to finalize plans with him I phoned to have his wife tell me that he was in the hospital! Luckily, I found out later that all was well, but David did have a good excuse for not showing up! I also heard from  a fellow who asked if he would be welcome in his Birkin Seven, to whom I replied "of course! "  Unfortunately, he did not show up.

Anyway I was glad to wake up to a sunny, if a little chilly, Saturday morning. A fifteen minute drive took me to the location of the BMC club's event - the Haslett home of one of our members who graciously hosts the event every Spring. I did mention this event is called "Clean Up Day" right? Well, in reality the only things that get cleaned up are the the hot dogs from the grill, and whatever beer our host Mark tries to hide from us. In fact, I brought  a pint bottle of "Chapman's Best" that I had planned to share with the Seven owners, but managed to forget about it in the excitement of actually meeting them!

In the end, we had two Lotus Sevens in addition to 7/B1135: John Gault in SB1100 who drove up from Browstone Township and Keith and Janet Brown with LSB2146 which arrived in a closed trailer with less than 4 miles on the clock after a comprehensive and painstaking restoration. Two Caterham Sevens also joined us: one a sharp, road going car that arrived with its top up to protect its two young lady occupants from both sun and wind, and the other, more of a track car arriving in an enclosed trailer. This track car it turns out came from a Caterham racing circuit in England where it apparently had performed quite well... Unfortunately, I do not have the names or contact info for the owners of the two Caterhams, but hopefuly they will see this and get in touch with me to share some of their and their cars' details!

See LSB2146's History and additional photos