Paul,
I heard of the Sabre kit before, but I believe it is by no means common. I
have never seen one. They are literally dozens of kit makers, but the best
known are probably Caterham, Birkin, Westfield, and Locost - I think Locost
cars are all home made, including the chassis, from plans sold in book form.
Westfield used to make a very close replica of the Lotus Seven S3. I heard
it was very high quality. They were sued by Caterham, who claimed to have
sole rights to the S3, and Caterham won. After that, Westfield made a Seven
clone far removed from the original S3 specs. Caterham also sued Birkin, for
the same reason, but Caterham lost. Recent Birkin Sevens are usually
actually closer to the original Lotus Seven S3 than the Caterham.... There
is enough to write on the subject for a book!
Apart from the Caterhams and Birkins, I have seen in action another fast
Seven type vehicle - a Superperformance, with a 240 hp Honda S2000 engine.
There are some V8 versions of Seven clones built in England. Not my idea of
a Seven though, as I would try to keep the car as light as possible.
Some builders had interesting ideas, like Rotus which fitted Mazda rotary
engines to their sevens - light and high revving engines work well in a
Seven. I guess the latest incarnation of that idea is the bike engined
seven - with a Honda or Kawasaki four cylinder engine making at least 150 hp
at 9,000 to 11,000 rpm, they must be fun to drive! There has been talk of a
lack of torque, but the Hayabusa and other 1L to 1,3 L bike engines usually
produce from 95 to 105 lbs of torque at relatively low revs, so it is
probably not the problem some make it out to be for a street car. There is a
maker of such vehicle in Canada, where they stuff bike engines into Caterham
chassis. I have seen videos - impressive.... and that noise! I know there
are Caterham bike-engined Sevens in the UK.
Last year, I went for a ride with a group of Seven in the Los Angeles
mountains - we were joined by a car magazine writer, who had his own
Westfield copy of a Lotus Eleven, and that he owned for twenty years. It was
powered by a A series engine, and I think it was a 948 cc. The weight of
that car was around 1100 lbs. He stayed in the back of the pack, but managed
to just about keep up with the Caterhams and Birkins, which all had Zetec or
even faster engines. We were not racing, but lets just say the pace was
definitely brisk. I was impressed with the Westfield Eleven - and the
driver!
JLC
PS: I wonder if there is a bike engined Spridget somewhere in the US?
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