Introduction - Meet Blossom

Blossom is a "20 foot" replica of a Lotus 7 S3. From a distance of 20 feet away, you'd be hard pressed to tell whether she is a real Lotus or not.

Why Blossom? It's just a very small pun on the flowery nature of the Lotus name. I don't usually refer to the car as a Lotus ('cause it's not), calling it a Lotus replica sounds too fussy (although accurate), and with the time that I have spent with the car, it just sort of acquired a name.

I bought the car about 18 months ago, largely to use as a race car. Although it is a race car, it is fully road legal, and I drive to and from race meetings. I don't have the space for a trailer and I don't own a car suitable to tow a trailer so road legal Blossom remains. When I bought the car I sought out a Ford x-flow powered example because I thought that would be closest to a genuine Lotus (or Caterham) car.

But after six months or so when the Ford motor lunched itself, I decided that fixing it would be more expensive than it is worth and I opted to install a Toyota 4AGE 20 valve "Silvertop" motor. After some initial teething troubles, this has seemed to be an excellent choice of motor. Cheap, freely available and happy to rev to the skies all day.

Blossom sports "clamshell" fenders, where most 7's these days have cycle fenders. Cycle fenders may make the car slightly faster but I just love the old-fashioned look of the clamshells. Having a car that looks old-fashioned, but out-accelerates and out-corners most cars just adds to the fun. To reduce wind resistance and increase that old-fashioned look I ditched the full screen and replaced it with a pair of Brooklands aeroscreens. As a bonus, the Brooklands screens give less turbulence than the full screen used to create.