i was talking to a friend a month or two back and one of his dads close friends used to test drives lotus 7's

i did manage to get 5 mins to chat to him and was amazed by some of the stories he had to tell

completely useless information but i thought id share

The good old days, when you could advertise bacci on racing cars. Good Pic of the double C.

Used to work with a bloke who in the old days worked for a boat company. They had this designer called Colin who used to do stuff with them. He's come in have these ideas and the rest of the engineers had to figure them out.

Said he was a genius Mr Chapman.

We live just outside Norwich, about 7 or 8 miles from Hethel. We were tinkering with the Luego on the drive a few months ago and an elderly chap who live a few doors away stopped as he was walking past and had a good look around the car, we started to explain to him what it was and he said 'I know, I used to work for Lotus', he was telling us a few stories about how he moved up to Norfolk from London when Lotus moved, then said ''I'll just a minute', he went home and came back with a photograph album of his time with Lotus. He didn't just work for them he was a works driver for Lotus and raced various cars for them including a 7. Amazing, I only knew him as an elderly chap walking his dog past my house but he's got some amazing tales from the early days of Lotus. We're competing in the Borough 19 sprint at the Hethel test track tomorrow, he'd probably be miles faster than me even at his age (wish I'd picked his brain).

Love the way people in the 50s, 60s (eg Graham Hill ) used to race in collar and tie.

"Designing sports cars is very much like making love to a beautiful woman...."