Lotus Seven Handbrake.

[EdWills]

I have been installing body panels on my chassis, and had to drill 2 holes through the flat panel (that the scuttle slots into) for the handbrake.  The Arch built chassis already had the welded sleeves in place, and I have new bolts for the handle and ratchet mechanism.  

 

I did some checking on-line regarding the handbrake, and found that in the past, Lotus Seven owners on this forum - as well as Lotus and Caterham Seven Club U.K. members, had inquired regarding the origin of the handbrake.  Weale, in his book notes: "The handbrake lever itself, with its angled stem, is one of the few early Lotus parts used on the present day Seven. Intended for mass production use, it is supplied in "straight form" and has to be dismantled and bent to shape" etc.........  

 

I discovered through another source that it was a mass produced handbrake for U.K. trucks and vans (small trucks apparently?) - manufacturer unknown, and purchased in sufficient quantities by Lotus, similar to many of their other parts for the Seven and other Lotus cars. This follows on with examples such as the rear lights that were originally manufactured for the trailer industry (Thorpe or Wingard), as well as parts from major manufacturers such as Standard Triumph, Ford, BMC, Lucas, etc., etc.  It made sense to purchase as much as they could from companies that already had the necessary parts that could be modified for their purpose, or already fitted the cars being produced, rather than starting from scratch by manufacturing in-house.

 

The handbrake on my 1969 Series 3 was not functioning at all when I purchased the car, and I had to dismantle it to see why it was not working properly.  It was quite difficult to reassemble it with the curved rod that didn't want to go back into place around the curved neck of the handle.  I believe that the newer (Caterham?) sourced handbrake levers have a rubber thumb press to operate the brake lever, but mine has a turned aluminium thumb press that wouldn't have been cheap (even at the time) to mass produce. I wouldn't recommend disassembly of the unit if you don't have to. W

Edited September 22, 2025 by EdWills

[EdWills]

I've been re-reading a book by Graham Arnold a former Director at Lotus in the 60s, 70s, and early 80s.  Chapman fired him in 1971, and then Mr. Arnold was hired back from 1977 to 1981.  Arnold notes: "Lotus cars were designed to make the biggest profit possible.  The formula was quite simple. He (Chapman) took the materials and labor and multiplied them by a factor of 2.8 (which eventually increased to 3) to get the U.K. retail price.  Cutting the material or component costs without reducing the retail price gave good extra profits.  For example, I (Arnold) discovered that Ford had produced a semi-close-ratio gearbox for the Corsair 2000 in 1964. This, with the 3.7:1 differential could be bought to save $75 per car or return us an extra profit.   Similar savings were used to stave off price increases.  We acquired as many parts as possible from other manufacturers' parts bins, and frequently found their van parts costing less than car parts."  

 

Note: Regarding the cost of parts mentioned by Graham Arnold, it seems possible that van parts may have been cheaper for Lotus to purchase due to U.K. Govt. tax breaks on commercial vehicles as opposed to regular road passenger vehicles (example: the Seven and 11 handbrake?).

 

Arnold: "Almost every year the company organized a campaign to "take pounds out of cars". Of course, we were talking about both pounds in weight and pounds sterling!"  Mr. Arnold goes on to describe testing cars to their limit (on U.K. roads) until they almost - or did - fall apart.  

 

"One of our favourite money-saving ideas was to push the frontiers of other manufacturers' "overengineering," which meant a part built for a smaller car would be tested in a Lotus to see if it was sufficiently overengineered and understressed to give adequate life." W.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 22, 2025 by EdWills

[Christopher smith]

Interesting info-thanks for sharing. Sure wished I had taken better notice of handbrake mounting back in 1986 when completely disassembling my series 1 just after importing it. Years later after many modifications and upgrades, putting it all back together was a bit of a mystery, at least for the handbrake. We finally found a way but sure was tricky. Ditching the idea of a full length floor pan as in series 2, substituting other reinforcements, was a good idea as access for many operations up front is very tricky.

[EdWills]

Thanks all.  It's not really a problem, but the Unirad built Lotus Seven chassis, and the Arch built Lotus Seven chassis have slightly different ways to mount the handbrake (along with a few other frame differences).  I have a replacement Arch built Seven space-frame that replaced my original damaged Unirad frame.  On the Arch frame, 2 bolts are required - 1 of 7/16" x 2-1/4" long, and 1 of 1/4" x 2-3/4" long (per Tony Weale). They go right through the flat panel that the scuttle slots into, and the heads sit just beside the battery mount.  If memory serves, the Unirad chassis had a solid boss with a groove machined in the end, which was welded into the square tube, the handbrake fit over it, and was then secured by a circlip.  The 1/4" bolt for the ratchet plate also did not go all the way through, but threaded into a blind tapped bush welded into the frame tube.  No big deal, but the Unirad method was possibly a cleaner way to mount the handbrake? W

 

Edited September 23, 2025 by EdWills