Every now and then the question comes up about how 'delicate' the original Lotus Seven design is. There are those who would re-engeineer, rebuild and reinforce the original structure, while others maintain that the original design was perfectly designed for the task at hand.

In an effort to shed some light on the answer to this question, the following anecdotal evidence was collected from a handful of members of the Lotus Seven email list, and is organized and presented here for your interest. Each entry is by a single responder, some had several failures of same or multiple components, while others had single failures. Having heard from about 2 dozen respondents, I must assume that the other 150+ members of the email list have never had a probelm with their Lotus Seven that they consider related to its design :-)

I have sorted the incidents under the headings of their primary systems, and have made an effort to distinguish between failures directly attributable to the design of the Lotus Seven, and those attributable to components which may have failed at an equal rate regardless of the automobile in which they were installed (operator ignorance/error falls in this category but is unspecified.) In this way, I hope to bring a little polish back to the perhaps tarnished reputation of the original design!

I have attributed questionable items to the design lest some folk think I'm biased -- which of course I am :-)))

Leading the report is a thoughtful commentary that was written by one owner who brings up some fairly valid points. I am open to any comments or additional failures any current Seven owner would be interested in sharing!

I suspect that what will mostly be reported are mechanical failures and such that are not a result of the missing or present frame tubes. Remember that the Seven was/is classified as a Sports car, NOT a Race car or Sports Racer. You can look at original Lotus ads of the period to find that out.

I think it is acceptable to view Lotus Sevens when used as race cars or sports racers as slightly fragile when pushed into the extreme situations for which they were not really intended. This fragility is understandable in this case as most race cars have frame tube failures etc. etc. or other damage at some point and time. Whoa . . . even the F-word, M-word, and other pure race cars experience failures and the need to fix them or add braces whatever.

I think that sports cars as a classification limits the amount of expected race use to occasional or even none at all. You can dream that Sevens are/were out and out race cars but face the facts . . . they weren't.

So the Grand Total reported failures is 38 that are not necessarily the Seven's fault, and 25 that are. Many of the 25 that are could easily be attributed to the fact that the cars are simply being run long beyond their anticipated lifespan -- stuff gets old, stuff breaks! The 'non-Design' issues are more prevelant than the design issues. Unless the non-Lotus components are to be called 'underengineered and poorly designed', then we could in fact say that the Lotus designed bits have generally outlived the non-Lotus bits eh? By a ratio of 1.5 to 1 in fact! --And that's under hard use, well past the expected lifespan, and even most probably when pushed to the extreme with stickier rubber and multiples (2x, 3x 4x???) of the horsepower that Lotus ever anticipated would be let loose on their lightweight design! Think about it in that light, the cars are downright incredible!

My final word? The Lotus Seven, when used as intended, is a plain, no nonsense, efficient and highly durable machine whose main failings are those of the outsourced components, closely followed by the failing of their owners to properly maintain them. And lest I cast the first stone, I'm the one responsiible for fouled plugs (too eager to wait ofr it to warm up, so run with choke on... too long), radiator leaks (I put the wrong radiator cap on which simply did not allow ANY pressure to vent), clogged fuel filter (gotta clean that tank!) adn yes, even running out of gas (now I have a spare gallon can with me!)

Comments?

--John Donohoe 1 May, 2006