A Mystery NZ Lotus

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Every now and then a car comes along to Turners that we’ve never seen before. This is one of them. Is it a kit car that’s registered as a Lotus? Is it a prototype of some sort? Where did it come from? Well I’m not entirely sure, but I believe this may be a prototype Lotus built in NZ by Steel Brothers for the American market. Is it a rare piece of NZ Lotus history? Well you can buy it and find out.

Lotus, as we know, is a British company that builds sports cars and was started by Colin Chapman. The early road cars were sold as kits for tax reasons and the most famous of these cars is probably the Seven. Lotus licenced the rights to the Seven in the 70s and they are still produced today by Caterham.

So what’s the NZ connection? In the early 70s Lotus moved away from kit cars and sold the rights to the Seven to Caterham and Steel Brothers in NZ. Caterham eventually began making the Seven under its own name making Steel Bothers in Christchurch the last place to produce a Lotus Badged Seven in 1979. At this point it seems Steelbro tried to build a new Lotus for the American market called the Super 907. Only one prototype was built and the project fell over. That car eventually went to the USA where it has been restored.

So what is this car? It’s registered as a Lotus Super 907 and uses the newer 907 Lotus twin cam engine with 5 speed gearbox but has a different bodyshell to the original prototype, which was a widened variation of the Seven. As you can see it’s left hand drive so maybe this was another prototype for the USA using the widened chassis with an alternative body shell. This car was registered in 1982 but maybe it was leftover from the Super 907 project that never got off the ground and was registered later? It’s a mystery.

Whatever this car is it will be fun finding out its history. On the face of it, it could be a genuine piece of NZ Lotus history. It is being sold by tender and offers close this Friday 21^st August at 1pm.

More details here.