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.
Renaud Richard's Lotus Seven
|
September 2006 Author's biographical notes: The reader can skip these next paragraphs which are pure biographical background of the present owner and has nothing to do with the car! In the sixties I was a teenager and following my father, impassioned by car mechanics. We were 2 stroke bike tuners, conceived and built our own karts were among the first licenced kart drivers and race organizers in France. September 2005 The current state of the reskinning (Sept 3 rd 2006) So I'm all on the skin right now and I must confess it gets a bit under mine... This of course because I'm not really competent! For example last weekend I was teaching myself, with help from long ago school memories, how to anneal aluminium. You have to paint the ali with soft soap, then when you heat and when the soap turns black there you are, just let it cool down and you can shape it again. And do you believe it, to my utter (nutter?) satisfaction it works! In all the process I'm very careful not to do anything that could not be undone. I don't make new holes in the frame for example. The sixties were Lotus F1 glory and Chapman and Jim Clark were my heroes. The 7 was of course my dream car. Still is after 35 years... Karting years were followed by thirties bikes restoration. In 1970 we restored my father's 1932 Sandford 3 wheeler and won in the first "Coupes de l'Age d'Or" in Montlhery against badly tuned and lowered British Morgan 3 wheelers. Sadly that wonderful car was robbed from our shed in Brittany in 1989 and never reappeared since. As a consequence to that thief my father, who was 80 in 1989, decided to do what was in his mind for many years: build a modern 3 wheeler of his own. More on this on Elvis site: http://www.3wheelers.com/gal237.html "The SimpleSevens of the 3 wheelers"! (my opinion) Now in the first days of 2004 I decided that I had waited enough, this has to be Seven's year. My budget was tight around 10,000euro (7,000UKP, 1,2000USD) so it would have to be an old Caterham with probably some work to be done. After following different battered Caterham leads in GB I found some very good ones too, fitting the budget or close and was finally negotiating with a chap near Oxford for a really beautiful Cat when I found SB2489 in an advert here in France. I took a day of leave from work and did the 1200 km to and from south of Paris to see it on his trailer in an underground garage. The price was within my budget, though of course what I got that was more a Lotus wreck than a perfectly running Caterham for about the same amount of money! Nevertheless I fell in love with the little thing and her true Lotusness did the rest. I apologized to a very nice Oxfordian fellow (more about his Cat later...), my extremely kind and understanding (aren't they all?) wife agreed to vote the funds and some weeks later the owner delivered. January 2005
1: Changing everything possible by some new part (On the contrary I would prefer to keep every possible original parts as long as it's possible) and 2: A poor looking old sad car. So it's a case for compromise again I suppose. Through SimpleSevens I found a very nice British fellow and we had some very useful exchanges (for me anyway!) because his frame is bare like mine and he is about to reskin it himself too.
Known history of the Lotus Seven S3 SB2489
Nicolas Pierre (1998-2004)
In the end of 2003 he began to dismantle the car in order to restore it. He then found an S2 and decided to sell the S3 "as is". Hence the selling price fitting my budget! The view above shows the car as I discovered it in an underground parking under Nicola's apartment. As I bought it in 2004 near Paris, the car looks good in the photo but:
Bernard Mary (1995-1998) photo: SB2489 in GB 1995 Nicolas bought the car from Bernard Mary on April 25 th 1998. As I had a copy of Bernard's "carte grise" (ownership document) and La Rochelle is not such a large town it was not very difficult to track down Bernard's phone number and a real pleasure to call him in spring 2004. Bernard is a very nice guy who, when said the purpose of my call replied: "Oh so you bought my 7! I should never have sold that wonderful car!" A long friendly conversation followed during which I suggested he bought another if he was so fond of it. There were nice examples of inexpensive Caterhams in GB. I spoke about the Cat I nearly bought in Oxford before the S3 and he asked me about the email of the seller. And guess what? He called me back about two weeks later to tell me he bought the car without even seeing it and it was nice to be sevening again! I really enjoy that anecdote! The 7 virus still rampant in that guy's blood all these years and just waiting to be rejuvenated! When Bernard bought SB2489 on July 8 th 1995 he registered it in GB under a friend's name, a "prete-nom" (frontman) to avoid the French "tracasseries administratives". So the car kept his initial CJJ 22H plates till December 26 th 1995 when he finally decided to register it 846 VQ 17 in France. He didn't do much on the car and used it mainly on the road apart from some hillclimb.
John Allan Hartley (1980-1995)
John owned the car for about ten years intending to keep the car and give it to his son when he reached 21. A change of plans made him sell it to me in August 1980 and I have owned it ever since. When I bought the car it had a 1600 cross flow Ford engine but this was subsequently replaced by a fully rebuilt Lotus Big Valve twin cam complete with Webers. The car is fitted with the original solid rear axle complete with 3.55 diff. (a 3.9 is available) During the course of my ownership I have removed the aluminium side panels to inspect the chassis rails. These were found to be in sound condition and so were filled with waxoyl and new aluminium panels were fitted. The inner steel panels have also been replaced this time with 22 gauge stainless steel to add rigidity to the chassis. The chassis has been properly triangulated according to Dennis Ortenburger's recommendations. The car currently has a Caterham bonnet and nose cone although I still have the original Lotus items. The interior vinyl perished a while ago and I replaced it with air inflatable seats to give the most comfortable ride possible for the thinnest squab depth. (I am 6 foot 2 inches tall) The car is currently fitted with Alleycat Wheels with 205/60 tyres but I still have the original Cosmic alloys. This is a great car which I will be sorry to see go but a growing family and a newly discovered passion for hang gliding means that I don't drive it anymore. The last time I drove it for any distance was in 1993 when we drove to Le Mans for the weekend, 500 miles round trip with complete reliability. It's a wonderful machine. John Alan Hartley, July 1995 In the fall of 2004 I was able to find a phone number to another address for a John Allan Hartley who, I reckoned, was the right one. I called him and it was! Again I found a very friendly man and was obviously eager to be helpful. He was kind enough to mail me the following: I will try to answer as many of the questions I can now and I will sort out as many photos as possible. I think that I painted the car red in 1983 when I re-built it. At the time I had a Lotus Elan Sprint and used to swap the cars over every two weeks or so. I wrote off the Elan and so put the twin cam into the Seven. The extra torque of the twin cam broke the chassis and so the side panels had to be removed. This lead to the rebuild. I have some photos of the broken chassis and I will forward them in due course. During the re-build I triangulated the passage area in accordance with recommendations. It made very little difference to the feel of the car. I also did the engine bay but again it made very little difference. I replaced the inner panels with stainless steel as I met someone who said it would make a huge difference. I didn't notice it. I did make sure that I used inert rivets to stop the possible corrosion between the stainless steel and the mild steel. The original steel panels were badly corroded so there seemed very little point in not using stainless steel. The thing that made the biggest difference was to weld a bit of angle iron between the steering rack supports. This made a huge difference to the resistance to bump steer. It was much better after the modification. I also installed the arrangements to push the pedals further away from me. I put longer bolts and spacers to hold the master cylinders in place. I don't know if this system is still on the car but I did it in such a way that it could easily be reverted to original. I am 1.85m tall and so fitting into the car was always difficult. I sold the original Cosmic wheels with the car. I will check to see what panels I still have but I am pretty sure that Mr Mary took everything I had. I will sort through my photos and send them through as soon as I can. I hope this helps. It would be really good to see the car again. Next time I am coming to Brest I will E mail you and see if we could get together. If I can help with anything please feel free to call, I would be happy to help. Kind regards John Hartley, Sept 8th 2004 John sold the car with the original unused parts: lateral panels, bulged bonnet for the single carb Crossflow, Lotus nose cone, Cosmic wheels and the Crossflow. Some guys are conservative and think forward luckily! So I got the car with the extra (bulged) bonnet and the extra nose cone. They don't fit because the front Dzus for the bonnet were brazed forward 2" for the Cat bonnet and nose cone (proofs of that move could be seen once I sand blasted the frame) but I will put them back. Bernard binned the old panels but I plan to make the trip to La Rochelle to get the crossflow and the Cosmic wheels. When I peeled the car the inner stainless steel panels were still there, as well as the welding of the broken round tube above the rear right suspension articulation. Cross bracing of the engine bay a la Ortenburger are there too. The brazing of these is of a redder colour of bronze than the original brazing of the frame and a bit less thoroughly done. Detail of the original brazing up left and cross bracing brazing right.
John Morgan Hardman (1976-1980) Both offside wings were replaced after minor scrapes and the car was totally re-sprayed in the colour yellow I purchased it in. I kept the car in this state without further alteration until I sold it to a man from the city of Bath, in the West Country. (J Hartley) John Hardman 2004 Tracking down the previous owner proved to be more difficult though obviously John was a great help. I can't resist to share the nearly unbearable suspense with you: From John Hardman (Fall 2004):
Dear Renaud,
Hope you are well, John.
Renaud Richard to John Hardman (winter 2005):
Renaud Richard to John Hardman (Fall 2005):
From John Hardman (Fall 2005):
Hmm! What do you reckon? Nice fellow but not much help to hope? Wrong!
David Parker (1972-1976)
Unfortunateley all the documents were lost many years ago as I tried to find them when I sold the car to John. When I get chance I will look for any old photos sorry I cant give you more info and if I can be of any more help please contact me PS the colour when I bought it was green with a yellow stripe down the bonnet and it is definitely a genuine Lotus Seven. Best Regards Dave.
Renaud Richard to David Parker (fall 2005)
From David Parker (winter 2005)
Then I indeed received from David a post mail with his original Caterham order for a car:
In the package was a CD too containing 17 photos of the car in the different states it was while with David: Green/yellow when bought then painted yellow, different wheels, carbs etc. Suffice to say I was absolutely delighted...
From David Parker (winter 2005)
1. The big box on the bonnet was on the car when I bought it and yes it was green and yellow and the engine was fitted with a single downdraft carb (weber I think) I got rid of the horrible box when I fitted the side draft webers and fitted the small bulge I think a new cam was fitted at the same time to suit the webers I know it went a lot better with the webers and the bonnet did fit with the webers. 2. The plates were changed to the new style yellow when the car was sprayed yellow and the small grey bulge became yellow and the suspension was powder coated along with the roll bar I think. 3. When I bought the car the wheels were steels I just borowed the minilites from a friend sorry about that red herring the cosmics were fitted about the same time as the respray. 4. Yes that's me by the car. How fashions have changed since then! Still have the hair though but not as long. Hope that clears up a few questions. Regards David
photos left to right: David and the car in 1972 when he bought it with the ugly bonnet box; Later in a somewhat different attire: different plates and normal box on the bonnet; Later again painted very "seventies yellow"! Those my age understand! G H Ne-port (1969-1972) For the time being (summer 2006) I was not able to track down "Neport" the previous (and presumed first) owner and maybe even kit builder in 1969. His name was also confirmed to me by JW Watson though with a somewhat different writing:
From JW Watson (winter 2004)
In the summer of 2006 JW Watson was indeed able to give me a more precise name: "G. H. Ne-Port" and an address in London for this fellow in 1972 plus the fact that CJJ 22H was a London registration. With the help of friends living in London I'm now trying to find this gentleman. Any pertinent information can be forwarded to [email protected] . Any comment as well welcomed about SB2489! As you can see if you dismiss the "bogus" owner (the nice fellow who was a frontman) I'm the seventh owner of that seven. I'm sure it's a good omen! |
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.