The Roaring Season

https://www.lotus7.co.nz/viewtopic.php?f=71&t=2055

I forgot I found one other reference to Studio Aguila online, and it may well be referencing this same design.

https://www.nhtsa.gov/interpretations/nht79-25

James Espey
Houston, Texas USA

I am in the USA and have acquired some documents from the old DeLorean Motor Company. Among them was a June 1979 letter from A.L. Harrison (Arthur, I believe) of Steel Bros in regards to what I believe is the Escape.

It included a styling drawing of this car and references a J.D Power & Associates Market Survey for the car in regards to potential sales in the USA.

The styling drawing has a logo in the upper left which looks like a stylized "BS" or possibly "AS". I lean towards to the latter as it there is some fine handwriting that says "Studio Aguila" and is dated "May 1979". The logo/badge on the front and rear of the sketch appears to be similar to the Steel Bros logo on the letterhead.

My interest in purely academic at this point, and I'm just curious to find more details on this car and share what I have with others who may be interested. If this might be you, great! Or if you know others who might be, please let me know.

Kind regards,

James Espey
Houston, Texas USA

http://www.delorean.net/SteelBrosFiles/Studio_Aguila_Sketch.jpg

http://www.delorean.net/SteelBrosFiles/SteelBrosLetter1.jpg

http://www.delorean.net/SteelBrosFiles/SteelBrosLetter2.jpg

Graeme Farr wrote:
I was lucky enough to get a tour around the factory in 74 - by David Dixon too! Great guy! Outside he had a red factory demonstrator which he said had won the South Island production sports car championship. That car was sent to Robin Curtis who was the semi-official Wellington agent for them - he did a hand drawn picture of it which was on the Motoraction editorial page for several years. A friend later owned that car in the early 80's - we had great fun in it. (I think Robin briefly had a dark green wide body one as well)

Hi Guys,
If you want to ad further interest to this Lotus 7 thread you might research the left hand drive 907 engined one off car Steels were developing with the idea of producing a series of them for export to USA. It had a very nice looking Lotus 4 speed gearbox housing which used Morris Marina internals that kept stripping teeth off the gears! The chassis was a widened 7 unit. The vehicle was purchased from Steeles by a gent from Ashburton when Steeles abandoned the project due to the amount of red tape involved.
and was used for racing ocaisionally at events like the "Country Gents" at Wigram and he probably ran it at Levels in Timaru and maybe Ruapuna.
If anybody is interested there are some other details relating to this vehicle which could be interesting.
PK.

Just spotted this thread. Some years back I had a Steel Bros frame for a wide frame 907 engined car. I did a bit of research and found there were four modified versions made of the S4.

1) The wide body which was just the std TC S4 with wider and more bulbous guards. Pauls one-off one had the odd looking rear spoiler.
2) The 907 engined car with the same widebody guards but longer than the std S4 (the front guards were longer) - there was a yellow one and a red one from memory.
3) The wide framed 907 engined car which was the same length as 2) but wider - there was at least one complete (white) car built and also my frame. This model had a wider nose and cockpit
4) The Escape - which had the different body with the 907 engine. There was the red one in this thread and one owned in Wellington I have seen - it was never quite completed. There was a long article about the Escape in Car Styling magazine-book from Japan.

There were also some 907 engined cars built after production finished by ex Steel Bros staff - one had Viva front suspension.

I was lucky enough to get a tour around the factory in 74 - by David Dixon too! Great guy! Outside he had a red factory demonstrator which he said had won the South Island production sports car championship. That car was sent to Robin Curtis who was the semi-official Wellington agent for them - he did a hand drawn picture of it which was on the Motoraction editorial page for several years. A friend later owned that car in the early 80's - we had great fun in it. (I think Robin briefly had a dark green wide body one as well)

I later had an early S4 7 with the Big Valve engine. My understanding was the first 50 cars came with the BV engine in the package deal from Lotus - and the second 50 had earlier type engines sourced from unused Australia Escort Twin Cam production. In an earlier post Patrick Harlow said the second 50 came from UK Lotus Europa unused engines. This may be right but at that time the Europa would have been using the BV engine and the later Steel Bros car I have seen have all have the pre BV engine with the smooth cam covers.

Bainbridges bought chassis jigs and body moulds and some 907 engines and gearboxes. Steels had bought a large number of 2 litre 907 engines when the UK factory changed to 2.2. There are still some unused ones kicking around in NZ. I vaguely remember hearing the Bainbridge deal was not straightforward and there may have been some dispute - not sure what that was about - perhaps the use of shape as they went on to make the more period looking version.

There are some great photos around of the 907 cars - including some being built inside the factory.

Graeme Farr

Wellington

Aussiemonza,
All the best for the rebuild.
I purchased the Gary Angel car (ex Dick Smith, Gary Ryan, Jim Murcott) and it will be heading to Tassie shortly.
Any info people have on the early history of the car would be greatly appreciated. Best to send to my email.

These photo's were taken in 1988 after I re-built the car for then owner Jim Murcott.

Here....

Post the rest Rowan, or can I? The car looks awesome!

aussiemonza wrote:Thanks Paul, I have that reference out of the Tony Weale book. Do you have any dimensions/plans or any idea who might have stock (long shot) or be able to manufacture from a sample? Mine was discarded for a pedal box, I want to put back to standard

You're going to hate me - I used to have a spare but sold it with a bunch of bits when we moved house.......

Hajo Steffen would be a good person to talk to about this. If you don't have his email address, send me a message and I'll give it to you.

If you are going to have one made (rather than make one yourself) you could get someone to pop mine out and make a copy. I would be happy for someone like Fraser Cars or ByGone Autos to do that - someone local who I know.....

Thanks Paul, I have that reference out of the Tony Weale book. Do you have any dimensions/plans or any idea who might have stock (long shot) or be able to manufacture from a sample? Mine was discarded for a pedal box, I want to put back to standard

Steelbro fabricated to same Lotus pattern as the UK cars. It was a bespoke item I believe....