Kit Car Magazine, January 2008

LIGHT, SIMPLE & SWIFT

Al Olseen's WCM Ultralite XR7c

by D. Brian Smith / Photography by the author

Lotus Cars of Hethel, Norfolk, England, produced the Lotus Seven from 1957 - 1972. The Seven embodied performance derived from being lightweight and simple. To avoid Great Britain's excessive purchase tax rates, the Seven could be bought Completely Knocked Down (CKD) as a kit, or fully assembled, which required customers to pay Britain's tax surcharge.

Catherham Cars, the remaining sales agent for the Lotus Seven, purchased the rights to produce the Seven from Lotus Cars in 1973. Caterham still manufactures several variants of the original Seven today. In addition, there are numerous replicar companies that reproduce the sports car.

Noteworthy among the replica Seven manufactures is a company in Lancaster, Texas, called World Class Motorsports (WCM). WCM builds two versions of the Seven, the S2K Ultralite and the XR7 Ultralite. Honda S2000 engines and six-speed manual gearboxes power both models. The XR7c on these pages is the lightest and best-performing variant of the two Ultralite models offered.

Fittingly, Al Olseen of San Jose, California, owns this superlative XR7c, which he had WCM paint British Racing Green. He was a professional snowmobile racer as a young man. Al later campaigned a 1,100-pound Dan Gurney Eagle Formula Ford open-wheel race car and a Formula Russell car that topped 150 mph and had a 200hp Mazda engine.

Given the Formula cars that Al used to campaign most successfully in SCCA events in Northern California, his XR7c should be very familiar to him. The Honda S2000 engine produces 240hp, the car weighs less than 1,100 pounds, and it's scant inches off the ground. As you might expect, Al bought the XR7c Ultralite to enjoy on the unlimited twisty and scenic roads that characterize much of Northern California. But he also intends to exercise it on the track. In fact, KIT CAR made a special junket to San Jose to photograph the WCM before Al's first scheduled track event. We wanted to make sure the photography was pristine. Though road-race rash looks cool on a race car, there's definitely something to be said for getting a car photographed fresh from the paint booth and before it has spent time at speed. We don't need to see any road rash in the British Racing Green paintwork to know this car handles on rails and is scary fast. The WCM Ultralites have run strong at the last several Run 'N' Gun events, outperforming and handling sports cars with over twice as much horsepower and torque.

Knowing Al's driving and racing prowess, we can't think of anyone better suited to owning such a fabulous replica racing machine. Al, have fun tearing up the tracks and taking on the twisties! And thanks for letting KIT CAR feature your award-winning WCM Ultralite XR7c. KC

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