Lotus · 1957–1973
Lotus Seven
The Lotus Seven is a sports car produced by the British manufacturer Lotus Cars (initially called Lotus Engineering) between 1957 and 1973. The Seven is an open-wheel car with two seats and an open top. It was designed by Lotus founder Colin Chapman and has been considered the embodiment of the Lotus philosophy of performance through low weight and simplicity. The original model was highly successful with more than 2,500 cars sold, due to its attraction as a road legal car that could be used for clubman racing. After Lotus ended production of the Seven in 1973, Caterham bought the rights and today Caterham makes both kits and fully assembled cars based on the original design known as the Caterham 7. The Lotus Seven design has spawned a host of imitations on the kit car market, generally called Sevens or Sevenesque roadsters.
Text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Generations & variants
Photos
UK vehicles on the road
235 licensed and 106 SORN (341 total) at 2025 Q4.
| Year (latest quarter) | Vehicles |
|---|---|
| 2014 | 279 |
| 2015 | 294 |
| 2016 | 294 |
| 2017 | 301 |
| 2018 | 311 |
| 2019 | 311 |
| 2020 | 317 |
| 2021 | 331 |
| 2022 | 330 |
| 2023 | 324 |
| 2024 | 334 |
| 2025 | 341 |
DfT/DVLA VEH0120 vehicle licensing statistics, source ↗, Open Government Licence v3.0. Small counts are rounded or suppressed at source.
Sources
- Wikidata / Wikipedia profiles — https://models.autoculturesociety.com/cars/Q1424429CC0 / CC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_SevenCC BY-SA 4.0 · Intro text © Wikipedia contributors; revision 1365931909 · retrieved 2026-10-03
- DfT/DVLA VEH0120 licensing statistics — https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/vehicle-licensing-statistics-data-tablesOpen Government Licence v3.0
- Car Model Index — https://models.autoculturesociety.com/Compiled record. Sources that do not permit reuse are not copied; this index is credited instead.