theDreamer

I do not see it listed so am I correct to assume this is using a Cortina solid rear end? Is so what's in the diff?

Today was the Boot ‘n Bonnet Club’s spring tour. It was not supposed to rain but it was only 7c when I left the house so the wife made me wait while she put up the hood. As she says it’s her job and I’ll only screw it up. I left it up all day. Although there were lots of clouds it was a high UV day and I have to protect my skin. Plus, it was better for the high speed Super Slab drive to and from the event. (About an hour and ten minutes one way.) We had 14 LBC's in total. We drove some very nice hilly, twisty roads well within the legal limits. (I will go back later in the year to re visit a couple of these roads and I will maintain a higher average speed.

Yes, this is a full on smog edition, single carb, all the air pollution controls, 53 BHP model with, as noted, the rubber baby buggy bumpers. Although many late model spitfires have those converted to earlier style chrome bumpers it is thought to be sacrilege to do so to this final model year. Speaking of which, with its build date being June 1980 and the last UK model being built in August of 1980 that makes the wife’s car one of the last North American Spitfires to be assembled. It was bought new in February of 1982 so it is also one of the last Spitfires sold. As to the fuel issue the garage discovered a cracked rubber fuel line and thought it was sucking air. This after the car lost almost half a tank of fuel while it sat waiting to get looked at. Sounded plausible and the car started and ran fine for them after they replaced that hose. The mechanic did adjust the carb and reset the timing as well. However the carb needs a full rebuild so a kit is on order. We picked the car up late Friday and the wife drove it home. When we arrived she jumped out screaming it was on fire. I raised the bonnet to find it was just coolant burning off the exhaust manifold. When she went to restart it so I could look to see where it was leaking, you guessed it, it would not restart. She washed and detailed the car. That took about two hours at which time it fired right up and she drove it into the garage. Go figure, eh! The car sat all weekend as it rained off and on. Yesterday, (Monday) she decided she wanted to drive it over to the nearest gas station to add some carb/injector cleaner and fill the tank up with fresh fuel. It fired up and drove over without incident. I took a can of Quick Start just in case it wouldn’t start. I figured it should fire up with a squirt of that stuff. However, it didn’t start after filling up nor after waiting several hours regardless if I used the Quick Start or not. So, Hagerty roadside assistance came in handy yet again. The car is now back at the shop and the wife doesn’t want to see it until they can prove it will start repeatedly whether within minutes or hours of being shut off. I’ve researched this issue and it seems lots of Spit owners have had this very problem before. However, each seems to have had a different cause and therefore needed a different solution. From carb rebuilds or replacement to filters and switching to electric fuel pumps. Then there are the electrical fixes from bad earths to lose or broken wires to replacing the coil. I’ll keep you informed as to what the problem and cure is/was. Meanwhile, I’m off in a couple of hours in Purple Reign to the Tuesday night cruise meet about a half hours pleasant drive away.

Nose badges on steering wheels is not new. The Original owner of my car wanted anything that said Caterham replaced with Lotus. He said as much in a detailed letter to the shop in Delaware that was building the car instructing them to use the Lotus nose badge he mailed them. I believe this was because the car was licensed as a Lotus back in 1993. I returned the car’s badging to being 99% Caterham. I ordered an HPC nose badge to replace the Lotus badge on the steering wheel. The only thing left that says Lotus is the small shifter knob emblem. I like that big chrome ball. Plus, I like to tell the story of how the Caterham 7 logo came to be and point to the shifter emblem so people can see the connection.

In the “Photo of Your Car You Took Today” thread I mentioned the wife won a sealed bid auction for a 1981 Triumph Spitfire 1500. A local LBC (Little British Car) club known as the Boot ‘n Bonnet Car Club inherited the one owner, low mileage 1981 (build date was June, 1980 but VIN model year is “B” for 1981) Spitfire as seen here: Spitfire Auction n.pdf . She beat out the next nearest bidder by $19.80 because she used the cars build date of June 1980 in her bid. It had been sitting for over three years before the club took possession. Because of this it has some issues. The club member who was storing the car said the automatic choke was stuck on and would cause the engine foul the plugs and stall. It would require removal and cleaning of the plugs before it run again and of course he’d have to repeat this after so many engine starts. When we first went to see the car we noticed the rear end was damp as were several other areas. We knew it would need some things done like replacing dried gaskets and seals and rubber items like wiper blades and tires. The wife had a devil of a time getting her insurance company to honour their quote. Three phone calls and over three hours and they still won’t sign off on what they had quoted. Five minutes on the phone to a Hagerty rep and her new car was on our policy with all the same items including Road Side Assistance. She also had a fight at several Service Ontario Centers trying to get the ownership transferred. They all required a new appraisal. They would not accept either of the two that came with the car. Finally she called a friend in the business. Was able to do a quick appraisal using the Governments 1 page form. He did note all the items that would have to be repaired or replaced in order for it to pass safety. We went back to a Service Ontario Center and they accepted the paperwork without questions. So Linda finally got the ownership transferred into her name as an unfit vehicle and a temporary plate good for 10 days to allow us to drive the car home and to the shop that would do the safety check. With everything now done we arranged to pick up the car. The day came and we went over everything with the cars recent custodian. We decided to drive the car home from where it was being stored because I wanted to give it a good shake down. The plan was for me to drive it part way home and stop to fill up with fuel. I would go over everything I had learned with Linda and then let her drive it the rest of the way. I pulled out of the driveway which was on a step hill and put my foot to the floor. Clouds of grey black smoke billowed out of the exhaust pipe and I could not get it above 30 kph it was running so rich. After a couple of kilometers it started to clear itself and before I knew it I was doing 80 kph in top gear. It seemed to be running fine. I made it to the first stop sign and turned south onto the main road and the little Spit hummed along rather nicely as the engine temperature had started to rise. However, it died after only 6 kilometers. We phoned the chap we had just left and he came with some tools I did not have. He snapped in a spark check viewer and there was plenty of spark. Next we pulled the plugs expecting to find them fouled yet they were clean but DRY. They should have been wet from all the cranking so the verdict was fuel starvation. Lucky for us a call to Hagerty and a flatbed was there within the hour. It was delivered to the shop that is doing the safety. They will be going over the car and get it running as well. I expect there will be a list of items that we will have to address. It has been sitting at the shop for week now as they were backed up. Tomorrow it is supposed to be first in. Being Friday I don’t expect to see the car until sometime next week. Little British Cars, they always need something, right? I’ve attached some photos we took on our first visit to see the car. These are not in the ad I linked above.

The plate USA 7S is registered to a Grey 2014 Mini Paceman Cooper 4x4 which the last MOT showed having 76,862 miles. No personal info available. Sound like a car owned by anyone here?

Sorry, we're getting a little off topic here but I had to join in. Our 1973 TCS (registered as a ’74) was yellow. After a Jeep Cherokee ran a red light and drove over the front end it spent a year in the body shop. During that time I decided to have the colour changed to red. By the time it was finished we had become a family of four. So we sold it to a young mechanic who lived in Toronto. Years later he decided to strip it down to restore/repair/modify it. I’m sure I saw it up for sale as a stalled project a couple or three decades ago. I have no idea if/when it sold or where it is today. I’d like another one but I’m very picky about them now having learned all the problems that came with them after owning one.

We had a long weekend up here so Sunday afternoon we took a drive. We traveled south east about 27 miles on nice sweeping back roads to fill up with fuel. We save on average 32 cents per liter, ($1.12 per US gallon) by buying on the first nations land. We continued back west along some very scenic roads approximately 39 miles to arrive an hour early for the Sunday Cruise Night in Trenton, Ontario. We ate an early meal on the covered outdoor patio at the grill overlooking the parking lot and watched as others started to arrive. It was a great turnout for the first show of the season with 110 registered cars. Dozens more came and went over the course of the evening. By 7:30-ish we were beat and decided to leave. We drove almost straight north the 14 miles to arrive back at home. In total about 80 sunny, fun filled miles. Tonight, (Monday) was the Brighton Ontario Cruise. The wife spent all today working in the garage to make room for her new to her Spitfire and was too tired so I did this event solo. The first photo was taken at the Trenton show and the second photo at Brighton. I put the plexy wind defectors on just for show. I prefer to drive with the doors on to cut down on the wind.

FYI The 1966 Lotus 7 S3 that was on Facebook Marketplace at: https://www.facebook.com/share/178YRz7o5t/ (Link listed above is dead) The seller has placed another new ad at: https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/27170235592582954 This Seven was for sale on Facebook Marketplace for some time. An interested buyer pointed out some problems and owner/seller took it off Facebook Marketplace while he had a mechanic check things out. The owner/seller had been claiming it was an original 1966 Lotus 7 that was completely restored and updated using Caterham parts in 1992 by Sevens and Elans. He had been asking $49,900. I messaged him several times with questions and comments but he has never responded to me. He posted it on the Lotus Club of Canada’s Facebook page and yesterday I noticed he’d changed his ad text both there and on Marketplace. He now admits it’s a Caterham and that the Lotus registration was a “US import practice”. However, he is still selling it as a 1966 Lotus because that is the way it’s registered in Quebec. He has also lowered his asking price to $42,000 Canadian.

It's a small world when you love these small cars, eh!

The Green Elise' owners name is Eric. He also has a Lotus Cortina and an Elan. However, his son drives the Elise and does track days and some competitions and his name is Rod or Rob. Sorry, my poor hearing is only surpassed by my increasing lose of short term memory. Sound like someone you know or have met? My wife took the rainbow photo at the end of the day. It was a short but heavy shower after a picture perfect brisk spring day on Ontario. I've attached anther photo of the Elise.

Not a photo of our Caterham but in keeping with the above Lotus photo I’ll mention this show and the attending Lotus. The Boot and Bonnet car club had their spring Autojumble this past Saturday and the weather was great. We had a good turnout of Lotus with 3 Elise, 2 Esprit and one Emira. Unfortunately not a single Europa or our Caterham. It is back in the body shop to fix the cracked fender. It was supposed to be finished in time for this show but the tint hasn’t shown up. After all the rain, both real and figuratively speaking, there was a rainbow at the end of our day. The wife won the sealed bid auction for the one owner, 20,035 kilometer 1981 Spitfire. Her bid was $19.80 higher than the next closest bid. (Secret tip for closed bid auctions, always end with an odd number.) In the wife’s case she used the car's build date of June 1980 and it payed off. We’re off to pick up the Spitfire in a few minutes. I’ll put the story in the “Other Car’s” section.

Well done you! Now do you make house calls?

We drove Purple Reign (cracked fender and all) to our first event of the season yesterday and today. This marks the one year anniversary of the infamous "stop sign crash." It was on Sunday morning, May 4, 2025 that it happened. We left our home Saturday morning around 8:20 a.m. and it was very cold, only 1c but with bright sunshine. However, it quickly turned miserable with heavy cloud cover and the odd rain drop or ten. Around 1:00 p.m. that turned to ice pellets so we packed up and drove home. It is only a 12 minute drive. Even though the weather was lousy the show lot filled up quickly. By midmorning the vender areas were packed. Sunday was still cool reaching a high of around 8c but with clear, sunny skies. However, nobody showed up. I mean it was dead. There were never more than 25 cars in the show lot and no lineups to get into the flea market. Oh well, it's the Boot and Bonnet Club's spring Autojumble and Car Show this coming Saturday, May 9. Hopefully the fender will be repaired by then and the weather will be as sunny as today was but much warmer. (That’s my brother’s ’59 Corvette he calls Betty Boop beside us.)

Patrick, I think most of us have corresponded with Martin Phipps and received similar info re: HPC’s. But thank you for taking the time to correlate the EVO info which I did not have. (I’m still waiting to get a copy of Chris Rees’ book ver. 4) I found one error or typo in your post. 5. 16 models were produced for the UK, and 9 for the USA; 12 were built at the factory, and 11 were delivered as kits. 16+9=25 not 23. As to your exhaust system I’d be interested to see photos of it. I’ve seen photos of HPC’s with single, rear exit pipe in both the straight back exit on the left and the across the back exit on the right with added resonator. Photos of your car would be nice to see as well.