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Well a Happy Thanksgiving
to my local US readers :-) And greetings to all the rest where
ever this finds you. I find myself up at my cottage this weekend
watching the rain melt the early 4 inches of snow we received
here in Michigan the day before our Thanksgiving holiday. I had
expected guests this weekend who would have kept me (and my wife
and my kids) busy (and me away from the keyboard,) but a phone
call to finalize plans found my friend and his family of five
were fighting various illnesses -- his young children having
various ear and sinus infections, and his wife recuperating from
bronchitis... I must admit I was a little relieved when I got
the news they wouldn't be coming as I knew it would be a chance
for me to make another move to get back on track with SimpleSevens!
I will try to better
describe this summer's excursion to the Pittsburgh Grand Prix
and the more recent visit to Mid Ohio in the 'Stories' area of
the site in the near future, but right here this time, I need
to bring a up a question, or rather a car -- a Seven in fact,
that has got me stumped over what to do with it...
A gentleman emailed
me in February of 2003 offering information on his vintage race
prepared Series 1 Seven:
I have not registered
with the Lotus Seven Register although I have all the paperwork
to do so. My Seven has a 948cc base, I'm out to about 1029 cc
and have only one real 'illegal' mod, a billet crank. Everything
else is within VSCCA or original spec for racing and I guess
I'm pushing 90-100BHP
Scott Chaiken
Ann Arbor , MI
Lotus 7 S1 #503; VSCCA car number 776
He provided a chassis
number that, checked against the Lotus Seven Register, raises
a serious question in that the number provided is outside of
the range of Series One Sevens. It appears to be a number more
suited to an Eleven, in fact, Lotus Eleven #503 is on the register
for Elevens. Generally, in a case like this I simply suggest
to the owner that I resist listing cars that have strong evidence
against their being original. This obviously incorrect number
seemed to me to be evidence enough for me to pass on listing
it.
 More recently he emailed again, asking
if I would consider listing it on my For Sale page...
John, I have talked
to you in the past about my Seven Series One, chassis # 503,
currently VSCCA #776. I would like to know if I could list it
for sale on your site. I have attached a sample picture but would
format however you wish.
Now, looking at the
photo, the car appeared to be a very nice Series One Seven, and
since Ann Arbor (home of the US Lotus Engineering office by the
way) is barely an hour from where I live, Scott asked me to come
down and have a look at the car personally.
 When I arrived at his house, Scott made
it perfectly clear that he wanted to hear my honest opinion of
the car. He had already contacted John Watson who passed the
news about chassis number 503 belonging to a known Eleven, and
further, Watson had asked the magic question: From whom did you
acquire this car? Anyone who knows much about questionable Series
One Lotus Sevens has heard that many of them have paths of ownership
that lead back to a particular sports car dealer on the East
Coast of the USA. In fact, if you mention New England Classic
Cars to many early Lotus Seven owners, or early Turner owners
for that matter, you'll get the same unpleasant looks. Now I'm
not ready at this point to go any further with this particular
train of thought, suffice it to say that the fact that the previous
owner of Scott Chaiken's Seven was New England Classics didn't
do anything to help its case for authenticity -- quite the contrary
in fact!
Now, I don't really
consider myself to be an expert on Series One Sevens, but I figured
I could spot a fake easily enough. What I found on close examination
of his car however, was that I could simply not be sure. To begin
with, the chassis plate is very obviously new which you can see
easily enough in the photo. In fact, I told Scott that the new
chassis plate was the worst thing I could see about the car!
If it had no chassis number plate at all, I think the car would
have a better chance of being accepted as a 'real' Lotus. So
the chassis plate was most certainly new, and therefore not original
itself. But does that prove the car a fake? The last Seven with
questionable numbers that I wrote up turned out to be an honest,
authentic Series Two Seven that had the wrong number stamped
onto a repro chassis plate during restoration. What are the chances
that we have the same case here?
The car does show
many details of modernization and also many upgrades for current
vintage racing. Many items are very easy to spot: roll bar, steering
wheel, instruments, headlamps, tail lamps, steering wheel, and
plenty of changes under the bonnet. The addition of these modifications
does not however, prove to me that the car is a fake. Not 'original'
certainly, but a fake? Then there are little details that
I wonder if a replica builder would include on a fake: the strange
little boxes of the upper rear shock/damper mounts, the quirky
steering column routing (through the floor between the brake
and clutch), the mounting lugs and pivot point for the emergency
brake...
I have been told that
there were several 'manufacturers' producing Series One Seven
frame copies but I have never been shown one of these copies,
and therefore don't know what new details might appear on, or
old details might NOT appear on such a frame. It is with this
fact in mind that I shot plenty of detail photos of Scott's Seven,
in the hopes that with a wider audience reviewing them, someone
might clue us in as to the details that might confirm this car
one way or the other!
Scott will certainly
be reading this page and reviewing the photos himself, and if
you, dear reader, have any insights or input into this or any
other questionable or replica Seven, please do contact me! I
will of course forward any information gleaned to Scott and will
post the result of this discussion on SimpleSevens in due time.
Following then, are the photos I shot of Scott Chaiken's car...
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