Like most UK cars of the era the early Lotus cars were interesting but buggy. The electricals were a nightmare, I recall a Europa a friend had: coming up underground parking ramps the knobs fell off the switches, rain stopped it dead (and the UK has lots of rain... whet gives?), and various motors or lights would fail intermittently... usually a power window would not run whenever rain was expected.
Beautiful to drive when they worked. The classic Lotus chassis was a rigid centre tube with all the suspension and such attached and the body perched on top. This worked very well giving a go-kart like ride and even with the souped up fire pump engines used they could accelerate smartly.
Lotus got involved with Ford and the Lotus name appeared on a few Ford cars, "suspension by Lotus" was used a bit and the Lotis Cortina rally car won a lot of races in the 60's. There was a Lotus Cortina available at Ford dealers but it was not the same as the race car: much like a Subaru WRX at the dealer shares about zero parts with the actual WRC WRX.
The Seven was a kit car but could also be purchased complete, I think. Very small open wheel two seater rear drive sports car, maybe 1/2 the weight of the typical UK sports car of the day - MGB or Austin Healey 3000 - with a more similar engine.
