car manufacturer Lotus Cars was founded as Lotus Engineerings Ltd. by Colin Chapman and Colin Dare, who were both University College London graduates in 1952. The first ever Lotus factory was found in an old stables in Hornsey, North London, tucked behind the Railway Hotel, but now has its headquarters in Hethel, Norfolk which it moved to in 1966.
Most famous for its Elise, Exige and Evora sports cars, Lotus Cars also has a very successful Formula 1 team, Team Lotus, which split off from Lotus Engineering in 1954. It was active in F1 racing from 1958-1994, in which time racing legend Ayrton Senna drove for them between 1985 and 1987. He won two races each year and achieved 17 pole positions with the British team. In the 2010 season, a new Malaysian based team called Lotus Racing re-entered Formula 1, but they simply licensed the name from Lotus Group, until 2011 whereby the team announced it would be known as Team Lotus after licensing issues.
The iconic Lotus 'Super' 7 sports car, is a small, simple and lightweight open-top vehicle which was designed by Colin Chapman in 1957, and has generally been considered the embodiment of the Lotus way of quality performance by encapsulating simplicity in design and having a low weight. It was because of this simple design and quality of performance that saw over 160 imitation designs by other car manufacturers, referred to a “sevenish” or “sevenesque”.