Westfield to create hybrid sports cars

In the early 1970s, after Lotus stopped building their iconic Seven, they sold the tooling to a small British company called Caterham who continues to build variants of the Seven to this day. In addition, lots of kit car builders sprung up making copies of the Seven, many of which have fallen by the wayside. One of the best known and more successful was Westfield. This week at a conference on Hybrid vehicles at the University of Warwick, near Birmingham, England they will be announcing a partnership between Westfield and the University's Warwick Manufacturing group to develop hybrid versions of Westfield's cars.

The Seven gained popularity for the same reason as its most direct descendant, the Lotus Elise, did: it was a lightweight, totally bare bones sportster. Thanks to it's feathery weight, it didn't take much engine to make it go insanely fast, just like an Elise. So it makes sense that just as the Elise has spawned the Tesla Roadster, the Seven should give birth to modern energy efficient variants. There's no word yet on price or availability. Since Westfield doesn't build engines and multiple drive-trains are available for installation in their cars, it would seem likely that they'll adapt an existing hybrid drive-train, likely from Toyota or Honda, to their vehicle layout.

[Source: Westfield SportsCars]