Bit difficult over here to travel any great distance but in '95 a bunch of us did the Lands End to John O'Groats run one weekend in 7's. Totally wicked stuff! On a circuit really giving it one I get 7-8 mpg to the gallon out of the twink and in Scotland I averaged about 9 so we were having serious fun! A round trip of 2000 miles or so door to door. No problems other than shedding a set of disk pads on a particularly fast and twisty mountain section in Scotland.

Couldn't make the '97 trip due to business commitments and missed a great trip by all accounts. Including a written off 7 and a police car when the drivers approaching from opposite directions tried to occupy the same bit of road!

Not long after I bought my S3 from Caterham I took a month off work and cruised the continent with a pal.

Did France, Monaco (interesting story), northern Italy, Switzerland, Luxemburg, Germany and Belgium (interesting story there too - in fact most places have an interesting story but few 7 related - well we were young free, single and out on the trap) it was near enough 4000 miles with all the excusions and we had a whale of a time and as in those days Lotus were at the front of F1 everyone loved the car. If I parked it in anywhere there were no security issues as it seemed the whole population turned out to crowd round the car with cries of "Ahh zer Loterrrs!" There were always pretty girls wanting a ride in the 7 too...

Any problems? Took the offside front wheel and suspension off after hitting a low wall. Silly reaction on my part, we were hacking back to Calais at high speed and saw a Watneys Red Barrel sign outside a bar, and without a thought turned towards it without seeing the wall! Luckily a passing garage owner hauled it into his garage and welded the wishbone brackets back in to the chassis and we managed to limp home with a less than concentric offside front wheel - didn't have a spare because that's where the camping stuff went!

Got as far as Calais and got arrested by a 7 foot tall gendarme for not showing a proper front number plate - the stickers on the nose had all peeled off and I think he hated the english anyway! We had to promise to leave the country on the next ferry, which was just as well as it was the one we intended to catch. The Monaco story is the best, we had been forcibly evicted from the casino at Monte Carlo and the attitude of the 2 motorcycle cops that had been called to arrest us changed immediately they saw the 7. Suddenly we were old pals and we got a lift back to our campsite on their bikes (they decided we were not capable of driving) and agreed to pick us up very early the next morning after we had sobered up, deliver us back to the 7 and then take us a on a guided tour of the Grand Prix circuit. Absolute magic! 2 cops on bikes being chased round the circuit at 7:30am on a Sunday morning before any traffic about, then into their local bar for coffee and huge brandies before taking any willing cops for a blast round the back streets. Unforgettable times!

Oh, and the clutch gave out on the hill out of Dover, but we managed to get home before it gave up the ghost completely.

The funniest story was the 2 girls we met at a Turin campsite. They turned up just after us in a dilapidated 2CV and as they were pitching their tent we were consuming a few beers outside ours while discussing their relative and not inconsiderable assets not dreaming for one minute they could speak english. After about 1/2 hour of this, one of them piped up in a broad Australian accent, "Well now that's sorted how about a bloody beer you bloody poms?" We stayed there an extra couple of nights!

The most hellish time? Having to baby sit 2 young German kids while my pal took off with their au pair for the weekend, in my 7 too, to add insult to injury.

And I think I spent as much money on diff oil as I did on petrol! But that was before the 5 link mod, in fact I think it was even before the stegosaurus plate mod!

KO

Steve

SB2339