Widebody S4 Lotus Seven

[Patrick.Harlow]

Geetings all. I have been reading through this thread, fascinating. I thought that some may interested in this. Currently I am in the process of getting my book, currently called NZ Cars a Cottage industry, ready to publish. The book is about New Zealand Manufactured cars and have I done research on both the standard S4 and the Super 907. Below I have reproduced the chapter of the S4 that will be going in my book. I have also writen another chapter on the 907 and attached a picture of a relatively unknown "Lotus" Super 907 manufactured in New Zealand by Steel Bros yet still a genuine Lotus. Enjoy


Lotus 7 Series 4 1973 to 1978
By Patrick Harlow

Although many people know that New Zealand was at one time the only producer of Lotus cars outside of England, only a few know that it came about through the passion of an accountant by the name of David Dixon.
David worked for Steel Bros in Christchurch as the company secretary from the 60s through to the 70s. Since the founding of Steel Bros in the early 1900s the company had produced transport equipment and tended to concentrate mainly on truck bodies and trailers as well as heavy transport based machinery. After building about 5,000 truck cabs and bodies the opportunity arose to build the Prince Gloria in early 1964. At this point Steel Motor Assemblies Ltd. was formed and became fully involved in serious car production, joining the huge number of car plants that had started up at that time. By 1967 they were building Toyota, Nissan and Mazda vehicles. They would go on to build tens of thousands of Toyota cars and trucks. By 1977 Steel Bros NZ Ltd. were only producing the Lotus 7 car. It is initially hard to understand how the little niche market car ever made it into production. I have included it’s story because despite being built by a major car producer, just over 100 cars were produced, mainly by hand in a similar manner to all the other cars in this book and through the enthusiasm of one individual.
In the late 60s it was virtually impossible to buy a new car in New Zealand unless you had overseas funds. The number of Hiab cranes that Steels were given a licence to import could be increased by the amount of New Zealand made content included in the cars and by the amount of overseas funds they were able to earn in exports. David Dixon believed that it would be possible to build a car with a fibreglass body and a separate steel chassis locally. The car he wanted was the Lotus Elan, as having done the maths he was certain that Steel Bros could build the car with a high New Zealand content. The car could be sold more cheaply than the MGB in Australia which at that time was the only volume sports car readily available. David was sure that they could increase the New Zealand content to almost 50% of the car which was twice the amount other manufactures were achieving. If it reached the target of 50% then it could be sold duty free to the Australian market
David contacted Colin Chapman, the CEO and founder of Lotus, who was positive about the idea and sent over his Pacific Sales manager Ron Richardson to discuss a deal in 1969. Not expecting such a quick response David quickly borrowed an Elan from an old school friend to evaluate how easy it would be to produce. The project was deemed to be feasible despite the complexity of the Elan. A deal was made and Steel started to consider how they were going to produce the car. Unfortunately due to liquidity problems in England, Lotus Cars had been forced to become a public company and because finances were tight it was deemed no longer possible for them to allocate resources to make Elan parts for New Zealand.
That was the bad news, the good news was that Colin Chapman had never liked the Lotus 7 and was looking for an opportunity to stop producing it. They offered the Series 4 Lotus 7 to New Zealand and Rod Steel of Steel Bros made the courageous decision to take it on. David Dixon again negotiated with Ron Richardson and in 1972 two cars were imported from the UK for a feasibility study. One car became the company car for David Dixon and was his daily runner until he accidentally wrote it off 25,000 kilometres later. The other car was stripped down to its component parts so that production decisions could be made. In mid 1973 Lotus announced that their production of the Lotus 7 would cease and they would sell all their remaining parts at discount. Caterham in the UK took some of these parts and the rights to continue Lotus 7 production in the UK but they were not allowed to use the Lotus name. Steel Bros purchased sufficient components, jigs and moulds to build 50 cars in New Zealand. They also had the rights to use the Lotus name and became the only Lotus manufacturer based outside the UK. They ultimately bought 100 twin cam engines and Ford 2000E gearboxes along with a healthy supply of Ford Escort differentials and steering racks. Triumph provided Herald steering columns and suspension uprights whilst Lucas supplied the instruments. The engines and gearboxes were purchased in two batches of 50 with the first batch being surplus from Elan production and the second 50 engines from the Europa production facility. Caterham would build only 37 Series 4 cars before reverting to the less complex Series 3 cars which they still build to this day.
In Christchurch production of the cars began in a sub-factory in Buchanans Road. The first few cars were built from component kits which gave Steel the opportunity to build a couple of chassis’ using the Lotus jigs, evaluate them and to make some improvements such as reinforcing the engine bay and making the front suspension towers from heavier gauge steel. The Christchurch boat makers CrestaCraft were subcontracted to produce the fibreglass components while all the steel fabrication work was done in house. The first cars were finished in December 1973 and received much acclaim from the local press. At $4,300 dollars each they were a similar price to the Holden HQ but with an acceleration time of 5.2 seconds from zero to 100 km/h (Holden HQ with 3.3ltr motor took 13.1 seconds 0 - 100km/h). Even with a 1600cc motor they were in a supercar league in both performance and handling.
Locally produced content of the car was 75% which made the government quite happy. In fact two prime ministers went for rides in the car; Bill Rowling in 1974 and Robert Muldoon in 1976. During it’s production run several other improvements were made to the car such as a detachable fibreglass roof. Items that would have represented ultimate luxury on its British equivalent were included in the New Zealand version, for example: a fully trimmed interior, elasticated pockets to store oddments, floor carpet and even a lockable boot lid.
In 1975 production was transferred to the main Steel Bros site at Treffers Road where the factory still exists today and where the company now trades under the name Steelbro. Fibreglass production shifted to Prebble Fibreglass and cars rolled out of the factory at a rate of two per month. The 70s oil crisis did not dent its popularity and it was not long before several of these cars were making their mark on race tracks around the country. It is believed that 98 cars were built at the Steel Bros plant before supply of the engines dried up. All were fully assembled and ready to drive. Of these 8 were sold in Australia. Steel Bros were faced with either stopping production entirely or using Toyota engines. David Dixon suggested using the new Lotus 2 ltr 16 valve motor. For David, continuing to use a Lotus motor ensured that they could keep putting the all important Lotus badge on the bonnet as this was the key to unlock overseas markets. The new engine would mean a major redesign of the car so work began on a version which would be produced as the Lotus Super 907.


Bibliography
Thanks to David Dixon, Allan Dick