History - Legend - Stories - For Sale

MKVI - MK7 S1 | SB1000 - 1499 | SB1500 - 1999 | SB2000 - 2499 | SB2500 - 2999 | SB3000 +
important: chassis numbers are as reported by owners -- their appearance here does not guarantee authenticity.

Scott Hoofnagle's Lotus 7
SB1290

I bought 1962 Lotus Seven SB1290 from the owner who had it since 1969. He knew of one owner previous to him. The owner since 1969 had bought it to autocross. He then decided to hillclimb with the car and eventually road race. The car has had all the allowed modifications done to it. The engine is a 1500 Cosworth with dual Webers. The owner before him raced the car also but I don't have all the details from him yet. The attached pictures of the car are in street trim and minus the magnesium racing wheels. The car has a plaque riveted on the dash from Ian Raby (Race Cars) LMT, I am trying to research that.

The car had magnesium wheels but the owner would not part with those because he uses them on his Elan that he races. I will need to get a set. The original lights might be with the spare parts. The car came with 3 spare engines and a lot of spare parts, some new some used. I am picking all of that up tomorrow.

Photos below of SB1290 at Hershey Hillclimb, May 2008, when owned by Jim Sieling.

Here is what Willis Weldon emailed me, telling about when he brought the car to the US. also I will put down what I know about the car when it was owned by Jim Sieling who bought it in 1968 from Willis Weldon. I then bought it from Jim.

(previous owner Willis Eldon writes:)

I originally purchased the car from Ian Raby Racing in Brighton, England in 1963 or 64. Can't remember which year for sure. I had the car shipped to the US and picked it up in Philadelphia. The car originally came with cycle front fenders. I added the flare front fenders shortly after the car was in the US. I also widened the rear fenders. My intention was to use the car for competition as I was currently racing an MG-A in SCCA racing. The car came with full weather equipment and I registered and licensed the car in Delaware. It was fully street legal. If fact I drove the car on the street quite a bit. I used the car in SCCA competition in both, Class F with the 1000cc 105e Ford engine, and in Class D with a 1390cc 109e Ford engine. I think I might have had a BMC engine for the car at one time. I ran numerous SCCA National races, including some endurance races. The car actually finished the Marlboro 6 hour race one year. This was unheard of for a Lotus 7.

I did make structural changes to the frame. I added additional bracing to the frame at lower front suspension points and braced the rear axle. One of the weak points of the car was frame cracking and breaking rear axles. Of course most of these things were not strictly according to the rules but the tech inspectors knew the cars weaknesses and let them go as long as they did not improve performance. The other big weakness was the Ford engines. They were notorious for blowing head gaskets when used in competition. They were fine on the street but on the track they were a problem. I finally found a solution to the problem, but I don't remember what it was. As I recall it was a lot of little things to improve coolant flow through the engine and radiator. I also moved the pedals forward and widened the drivers area as I am 6'4" tall.

I also used the car for local Autosprint competition. We used to have Autosprints at New Castle County Airbase which had a huge area we could use. I was the regional modified champion for several years in the mid-60s. We used to get well over a hundred entries at these events. I had several close competitions with a fellow named Horace Ott who had a highly modified Porsche 356 roadster. He and his son used to drive the car.

Here is a photo of the car at the SCCA Nationals at Cumberland, MD in 1964: (click here) I am the one with the chin bandage. I won the race as I recall. The reason for the bandage was during practice the previous day a car in front of me kicked up a stone and it hit me in the chin. When I came into the pits I had blood all over me and they immediately took me to the hospital.

There are some more pictures of the car on the web but I don't remember the URL's and did not book mark them. The last time I drove the car was at the Reading Road Races at reading Airport in 1968 I think. I won both of my races by a large margin. The following week I received a call from the fellow you bought the car from. I was not particularly interested in selling to the car, but my children were 7 and 9 years old and we had just started building a house. So I named a price, which I thought was high, and he said ok. So I sold the car. I really don't remember the selling price. I do remember I had the car sitting in my garage in the US for under $1000 when I purchased it in the UK. The car setup for racing with a half tank of gas weighted less than 900 lbs.

When Jim purchased the car in 1968 he used it for autocrossing and hillclimbing. Jim was always the one that everyone else was trying to beat. I can remember when I was young watching Jim race the car and dreaming about owning a car like that someday. Since Jim was gracious enough to sell it to me I now own the car I dreamed about. He was extremely successful campaigning the car. At some point during it's history Jim decided to run the car with a modified non crossflow Cosworth 1500 engine which is currently in the car. The car was totally rebuilt during Jim's ownership.

So to sum it up the car has been very successful over the years with these two talented drivers.

My hope would be to trace a sticker off of this bar and then to find a later photo of the car showing the remains of the hoop that was on it though I know that this is a long shot.


History - Legend - Stories - For Sale

MKVI - MK7 S1 | SB1000 - 1499 | SB1500 - 1999 | SB2000 - 2499 | SB2500 - 2999 | SB3000 +
important: chassis numbers are as reported by owners -- their appearance here does not guarantee authenticity.