The Regular Summary of Classified Ads of Se7ens Found For Sale

[scannon]

Maybe they are white silk scarves in honor of Isadora Duncan. They look like they have been flapping in the wind.

[coffee break]

Vortex generators

[Croc]

The scarves go with the brown leather flying helmets hanging of the roll bar. Its Biggles from Georgia!

 

I was thinking it was a BDR then the ad changed to BDA...its lowest hp cousin. Still it gives you a block to upgrade to BDR. And it is lovely to see.

[Kitcat]

It seems like a nice car with great engine. If the dyno # is correct, it makes abt the same power as my Zetec SVT. Since he calls it both a BDA and a BDR it is hard to know if he is just confused or clueless. And he calls the color of the clams BRD (Maybe a cousin to BRG, since they are green, again clueless or confused?) I love that the owner emphasizes that it is NOT a Lotus replica and then says its a Lotus clone (clueless or confused). And it weighs about 1000lbs. I suspect its more like 1200 lbs(Clueless or....). Finally the white scarves. Let's call that the tie breaker and go with clueless. But it doesn't detract from the car being quite nice and something I'd be proud to own (tho maybe for $5-10K less, depending on engine).

[MichaelD]

It's NOT A REPLICA.

 

IT IS A REAL CATERHAM....yada, yada, ya

 

And so it goes on.

[Oldfart]

The scarves go with the brown leather flying helmets hanging of the roll bar. Its Biggles from Georgia!

 

Croc is correct! I had to ask the owner, "I'm trying to figure out why you have scarves tied on the rollbar? I've never seen that before."

"Because that was a good place to keep them when we're not wearing them." :rofl:

[MichaelD]

1. maybe he placed them there to make sure people saw him.

2. maybe they were placed there when it broke down or ran out of gas.

3. maybe he was drying them out after being caught in the rain.

 

any other thoughts?

[Alfonse]

Maybe he was surrendering?

[super7guy]

Hi Guys,

 

If you follow Cosworth lore, the BDR is only a head conversion on the kent block. To get the real HP, requires steel crank and rods, giving 9500 rpm capability, like the BDD. A BDR conversion was on race-cars.com to get an idea of the conversion.

 

My Vegantune BDD uses some Cosworth parts with the corresponding "co$worth" in the prices.

 

Wayne

[xcarguy]

1. maybe he placed them there to make sure people saw him.

2. maybe they were placed there when it broke down or ran out of gas.

3. maybe he was drying them out after being caught in the rain.

 

any other thoughts?

 

Maybe its a Tony Orlando and Dawn thing...just didn't have any yellow ribbon or an old oak tree. :jester:

[Croc]

Do you realize this thread has 175000 views and 102 pages? We spawned a monster!

 

 

The Biggles Caterham in Georgia with BDA/BDR is still on Ebay at a starting bid of $39000. 3 days to run and no bids tells me that it will be relisted with a lower starting price in a few days. Given a BDR Caterham S3 (similar look but red and ali with no scarves) went for $31k area last year and the market pricing has softened quite a lot since then, I suspect $39k upwards will be a stretch unless just the right buyer turns up.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lotus-Super-Seven-No-Door-Roadster-/231941713122?forcerrptr=true&hash=item3600cdace2:g:ADkAAOSwHJhXM86i&item=231941713122

 

 

The ex-Dennis Brunton, SuperStalker is back with its BIN of $41800

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Replica-Kit-Makes-Brunton-Superstalker-Super-Stalker-/331846360075?forcerrptr=true&hash=item4d43959c0b:g:-osAAOSwhRxXJ3iJ&item=331846360075

 

 

The Robin Hood is still hanging around here

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lotus-Super-Seven-Super-7-/182128123012?forcerrptr=true&hash=item2a67ae9c84:g:PNEAAOSwQSBXHYv5&item=182128123012

 

 

And something new this week. Our earlier seller of a 7 in Bridgewater NJ is back with a restored looking Lotus 7 S2

 

1964 Lotus 7 (series 2) NOT A REPLICA! This Lotus 7 serial number SB 1428 has been restored to a very high level. If you are in the market for a great Lotus or just want to experience the thrilling driving experience that only a true Lotus 7 can give you must consider this Lotus 7. As you may know the series 2 cars were the best of them all as they had the stronger frames, bigger engines and desirable suspension modifications that make them best of all. It is extremely hard to find an original Lotus 7 that has not been raced or modified so this Lotus maybe the best available anywhere. This Lotus 7 was restored to a high level in France in 2005 and enjoyed a long period of ownership in Paris until past owner was transferred to the USA in 2013. I have all documents and pictures of the restoration in a nice photo album.

MECHANICS: All mechanicals were restored in 2005 and are in excellent working order today. The engine was rebuilt and it is a 1600 cc Ford Crossflow matched up to a 4-speed transmission. The engine has larger valves and a hotter road cam that produced approx. 135 Horsepower. Being this Lotus 7 weighs less then 1,000 pounds and this horsepower it will outperform most vintage sports cars. Car starts right up and idles nicely. There is no hesitation upon acceleration and no smoke. Transmission shifts into all gears with ease and precision. This Lotus mechanically is ready to be driven and enjoyed, I would not hesitate to drive it ANYWHERE!

INTERIOR: All gauges and instruments work with accuracy. Horn, turn signals, lights work as they should. Seats have been upgraded to leather bucket seats (for better support and comfort). There are floor mats that are removable. Seat belts are harness (race style) for safety.

 

EXTERIOR: All panels appear to be original and are in excellent condition. Fenders are painted black and are very glossy, however there are some chips and flaws, as common in a Lotus 7. Tires are also in excellent condition. Wheels including spare are true knock-off wheels and are in great condition. Windshield is like new. All lights and turn signals work as they should.

 

The S2 were the best for their strong frames? Compared with what? An S1? Al dente spaghetti? My preference is for an S3 - that was stronger better chassis. The crossflow is a more recent engine than the chassis I think? Its a privately imported car so make sure you get the US Customs/EPA importation paperwork if you buy it.

 

 

For all the marketing floweriness above, the car looks great and has a BIN of $27500. Thats a good starting price to be working with.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lotus-Super-Seven-roadster-/322102237026?forcerrptr=true&hash=item4afeca1762:g:HQAAAOSwQNRXL3XL&item=322102237026

 

 

yes its here - must be setting a record for sitting on a dealer floor.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lotus-Super-Seven-S4-/272137610661?forcerrptr=true&hash=item3f5caa65a5:g:DiMAAOSwDuJWzznz&item=272137610661

 

 

 

Today we also have a 2002 Chevy Trailblazer LS. Why? Well the muppet dealer thinks that any listing brands of similar purpose cars in your craigslist ad you will attract the right buyer. Try again...

http://miami.craigslist.org/mdc/ctd/5585124354.html

 

Oh its Miami - figures!

 

 

The Maine Birkin is here at $24520

http://maine.craigslist.org/cto/5553345299.html

 

 

Whizzy's Westfield in an all caps ad (please no more shouting Whizzy!) at a lowered price of $18950

http://tulsa.craigslist.org/cto/5533297400.html

 

 

Stalker in TX Asking $22k

Robust, powerful, fun, excellent handling. This is an updated copy of a 1962 Lotus 7 roadster using American components. This is not a VW kit. Tubular frame, Buick fuel injected 3800 cc V6 (not supercharged), Tremec T5 5 spd transmission (Camaro), Chev. axle with limited slip, coil-over shocks, 4 disc brakes, Autometer Cobalt gauges. Price includes duck-tail trailer, tonneau cover, wing windows, side windows, and conventional emergency brake parts (not actually needed but left over).

 

https://easttexas.craigslist.org/cto/5538694557.html

 

 

Locost Rx7 project

http://akroncanton.craigslist.org/cto/5545323750.html

 

 

Well the ad says it is a 1980 Lotus 7. What do you think?

 

Rare 1980 Blakely Bearcat "S"

 

 

Street version of the Lotus 7, with working doors and trunk. Dick Blakely started to offer Lotus 7-style kit cars, called the Bantam, in 1972 in Love Park, Illinois, and in 1975 began offering a more civilized version called the Bearcat

 

Ford 2.3L 4 cylinder OHV engine wtih a stock 2bl carb,and 4 spd manual transmission. with only 4,550 miles.

Temp gauge, tach speedo, Volt and gas gauge, brand new Magnaflow side dump exhaust, with custom roll bar.

Has brand new brakes, has a new side load exhaus, Hurst T handel shifter, full

top and side windows but I have never used them.

Gelcoat is showing some black splocthes is a few areas,

may be bleed through from the mold process, don't know why.

Has cover for the top when it is installed on the car, 15 x 6 inch alloy wheels.

Custom front suspension. Ford differential, rack and pinion steering with front disc brakes,

rear drum, Special upgraded seats ordered from the factory, can use a little work,

AM/FM with 6 CD player mounted between the seats, detachable rear speakes,

Two speed wipers (3 blades Motor not installed) -

Halogen headlights, Leather wrapped steering wheel. push button start

 

Have all receipts, build manual, pinto repair manual

 

Clear title in my hand.

 

 

A significant feature was that the fiberglass body and fenders used a PVC foam core sandwich type of construction that added considerably to overall strength and ruggedness of the Blakley car.It has Fiberglass body on a specially built frame of box steel tubing. Custom front suspension. Ford differential, rack and pinion steering with front disc brakes, rear drum, Special upgraded seats ordered from the factory, can use a little wok. No carpet, no heater

 

Red with tan interior and white convertible top with soft side windows, back window and sides are plastic and in like new condition,

 

 

Custom, Hand Crafted Car. One of it's greatest attributes is the leg room, a six foot tall man, 225Lbs can fit and drive it comfortably.

https://dallas.craigslist.org/dal/cto/5576373133.html

 

 

Hemmings and classiccars.com are out there to look at as well.

[Blokko]

Oh man, can't believe how different the market for 7's in the US is compared to the UK. That Robin Hood would fetch less than £5k. The S4 Lotus7 would probably be sub £10k.

[Croc]

Ummm Steve...probably should be!

 

The Robin Hood will eventually go for $15k area. Thats GBP8-9k area. Wasnt the Robin Hood the comedy engineering brand with fiberglass spring perches and other death design features?

 

The S4 7 is being sold by a dealer who probably paid too much since it has failed the 3 month dealer inventory rule. It should be $23k area so that makes it GBP14k

 

Its a case of not much supply to push the prices down.

[Blokko]

The Robin Hood was right at the bottom of the kit car food chain. There were some concerns about the suspension / steering design at one stage and at another point there were questions as to whether the monocoque design was strong enough. As with Westfield, I believe that Robin Hood Engineering had some court time courtesy of Caterham defending their IPR.

 

Robin Hood did a couple of things that were innovative. To keep costs down they did bulk orders with a load of people picking up their finished kits on the same day. They also tried to source all of the parts from a single donor car. For a lot of people this meant procuring a Ford Sierra about a year before building the kit and stripping it to bits. Theoretically this was cheaper and easier than getting bits from several different marques, which was the norm with other kit car manufacturers of the time. Hats off to the people who completed these projects - they really required build / fabrication skills that would shock the average Caterham kit builder. One of my colleagues started this process many years back - he never even finished off butchering the Sierra before running out of interest. There was a time when it was quite common to see part built kits up for sale for next to nothing.

 

For those of you who were on the Se7ens List 2005 USA tour, I'm not sure if Trevor Joel made the trip (I think he holds the record for most tours attended). He still drives a Robin Hood built by cannibalising the Triumph Herald that had been in the family for years. Here is a pic from Eilean Donan Castle when we toured Scotland in 2010.

[rolexa]

Neither confused or clueless. Caterham marketed the car as a Cosworth BDR, so I used the Caterham naming convention as an identifier of the model. The engine is a BDA with steel crank, 10.5:1 compression and BD3 cams, so I called the engine what it is: a BDA. Confusing to the casual reader, with limited Caterham knowledge? Maybe, but that's not my intended audience. As noted it was properly built by Hasselgren racing engines in Berkley CA. It is NOT a Cosworth BDR engine kit, which was nothing more than the head/piston/intake/exhaust/misc parts necessary to "convert" a Kent crossflow engine to a Cosworth BD. Replica? Again neither clueless nor confused. I merely attempted to draw the lineage of the Caterham cars whick are direct descendants of the Lotus Super Seven, based upon the same blueprints and design as the original car. No other manufacturer (Birkin, Superformance, Westfield, etc) can make that claim. BRD, Well, you got me there. Now your job is to go find the other two typo's I'm too lazy to go fix. And finally, the scarves. I'm shocked at the amount of traffic this minor item generated. Glad I left them on, as it seems to be the thing that brings people to the ad! As far as clueless on that one, obviously you lot are too young to have seen or remember that this was common motoring dress in the years leading to and post WWII. The vintage WW1 RAF leather "helmet", a set of aviator goggles and a flying scarf (the ones on the car are vintage US Army Air Corps flying scarves). As far as clueless goes, y'all could never have driven any serious miles in a 7. Personally, I like the set up more than a full face helmet when driving the car. Without some protection, driving gets to be a very uncomfortable experience, and at speed my glasses attempt to fly off my face. So as long as I need the lid and goggles, why not go for the whole retro experience? I always get "thumbs up" from other drivers when tooling around the back roads of Georgia.

[rolexa]

Per Croc: "The Biggles Caterham in Georgia with BDA/BDR is still on Ebay at a starting bid of $39000. 3 days to run and no bids tells me that it will be relisted with a lower starting price in a few days. Given a BDR Caterham S3 (similar look but red and ali with no scarves) went for $31k area last year and the market pricing has softened quite a lot since then, I suspect $39k upwards will be a stretch unless just the right buyer turns up"

 

Don't count on it. First, I've owned this car for almost 24 years and still love it. Like all my British cars, it was built to my standards to fit my physical size requirements. The only reason I listed the Caterham and 3 other cars, was that I needed a garage space for my latest acquisition. Luckilly my least favorite car sold first so the pressure is off. Second, I am not in the habit of relisting at lower prices. Why would I negotiate against my self? You and I both know that selling is exposure. If someone is truly interested, they'll reach out and either accept the asking price or make an offer if they think the ask is too high. Then it's my job to determine whether I'd rather hold the asset or part with it at the named price. When this listing runs it's course, you may not see this car available again for years.

[Croc]

Well said Rolexa! I assumed this Ebay auction would be like 98% of the ones I see out there. If you don't need to sell then there is no reason to compromise on price. I apologize for grouping you with the other sellers. I am very happy to be proven wrong in this instance with your comments showing that you truly do care for your car and will continue to drive it happily. :driving:

 

 

As for why other sellers re-list at lower prices on Ebay then you may want to look at the Dutch auction strategy. I personally don't think it is a good one for sevens but it is prevailing on Ebay from my observations.

[rolexa]

Thank you for the kind words Mike! And I certainly see eye to eye with you on your original assumption. Luckily I don't need to be one of those guys that sets keeps dipping the price until bids happen. For the cars I love vs the ones whose novelty quickly dissipates, I've always been more of a "you need to want this more than me" seller. There are a number of cars out there that I was instrumental in creating that have ecstatic second owners that know the day they tire of it, I want to be first in line to buy it back.

 

I'm not familiar with the dutch auction strategy. Always something new to learn. Thanks for the tip. I'll look into that and see how I can keep from creating the impression I apparently did with you.

 

For me, this car was an opportunity to create what I didn't have the first time around. I owned an original Lotus seven in 1977, SB1374. I acquired the car in pieces and set about rebuilding it. It had a 948 cc BMC A motor at the time. I quickly came to the understanding that Lotus 7's were meant to be driven by Jockeys, not Linebackers. First order of business was to find a place for the legs and feet. A rebuilt pedal box fixed that, and I was "off to the races". Unfortunately, 36 HP wasn't my dream performance, and before I could rectify that along came the first child and the new associated expenses. So SB1374 got sold and I became a father. Fast Forward a shit-tonne of years. The urge for a high perf Super Seven never left. I looked at DSK cars and the random seven on the market, but only became committed when, in the early '90's Caterham said they could make a car to fit me. Cool, sign me up! And there began a new odyssey to create the car I was unable to afford years earlier. Plotting planning scrimping to get all the bits necessary to build the "Ultimate 7" And of course, the Ultimate 7 would need the engine that was out of reach for me during my stewardship of SB1374: A Cosworth BDA. No Vegatune crossflow, no Vauxhall. Nothing would do except for a BDA, which is what this car proudly carries.

 

Selling a car such as this is always a painful experience. One can always buy an "off the shelf" model, but the cars I've had built to my personal view of the world are special. They are truly one off creations built to my whim, not to mass market sensibilities. It takes time, but patience always found the "right" buyer: the guy who says "this is the car I dreamed of and sketched in High School" or "This is the car I would have built if I had the resources 20 years ago". Now that last one sounds familiar. Nice thing is someone has a brief opportunity to buy there dream at a 50% discount over what it would cost to recreate this car in 2016.

 

Sometimes someone gets lucky. I want that lucky person to love this car as much as I did/do, and to see it as the pinnacle of their automotive dream, same as I did when I designed it.

 

Thands again for the kind words. Hopefully the right person might drop by this forum, find this likd, and say "Damn, just what I dreamed about 20years ago" "Wonder where it is"

 

Well if I find the right buyer, I'll know who currently owns my car, and also know the new buyer has to compete with me to buy the car from it's current owner

 

ron

[rolexa]

Oh, I almost forgot. The Biggles reference is priceless! Hadn't thought of Biggles, as his image was tarnished by the Monty Python skit "Biggles dictates a Letter". Always thought of myself as a combination of LJK Setright and "Ace" Rimmer (Red Dwarf Season 4 Episode 5)

[slomove]

Magnus' car is for sale (he started the California Caterham Club and forum). CSR with mostly Cosworth Duratec. $38k with trailer.

Needs a paint job but technically a great car.

Edited May 17, 2016 by slomove