Lotus Seven Series II SB2039

I went to the CSRG races at Sears Point towards the end of March and...saw a very nicely turned out Seven for sale. It was a race car that seemed as though it could easily be converted back into a street car and remain a true Seven.

By the end of April... I made a few calls. It was believed to have been sold. Oh well. CSRG was racing again over Memorial Day weekend at Sears Point, so I headed back up there to see if anything else might be for sale. I saw some very nice Sevens, but none seemed to be for sale. Eventually I was pointed to a car that was for sale. Lo and behold it was the same car I had seen last March. Same price, same deal. I met the owner, Bernie Iriks and watched closely as the car raced that day. And the following day. Bernie didn't win, but was very, very competitive; it was some very cool racing. By Sunday night it was a deal.

Since acquiring the car I've learned a bit about it's history from previous owners and interested Lotus aficionados. Here's what I know:

Built in May or June of 1965
Originally fitted with a 116E Cosworth
Painted green
116 gearbox
Dual Weber 40DCOEs
Oil Cooler
Built as right hand drive
First sold to someone by the name of "Manley"

Eventually sold to R. McEvoy in Marin county, CA. He owned it for roughly ten years and the car wasn't in particularly serivceable condition. At one point in this period it was licensed as 424 SHI.

In 1990 Brad Moore purchased the car and did a bunch of work on it to make it drivable again. Was issued plate 3TMS434 and eventually became 65 SEVEN.
In July, 1997 Bernie purchased the car from Brad and finished the restoration work, eventually setting it up as a highly competitive CSRG race car.

May 2001, back to a street car. Currently running with a tuned early Lotus Twincam. I am only the latest curator and can only hope to take care of it as well as some of the others have.

Many thanks to Bernie Iriks, Brad Moore, Mike Ostrov, Rich Kamp, and Detlef Claudius.