Getting car back on the road

[paul]

Hi,

I've been getting some contradictory advice on getting my car back on the road. The advice has come from professionals who do this sort of stuff for a living, so I'm understandably confused. I was hoping you might be able to help me.

I have a locally manufactured Lotus Seven, made under licence to Lotus by Steel Brothers in the 70's, with a hundred or so made for the local market and export. My car was used on the road from new until sometime in the mid-late 90's when its (then) owner allowed the registration to lapse. Whilst it is deregistered, its chassis number and VIN are still on the Landata System so it is easy to prove it has previously been on the road etc. It has no number plates as the previous owner kept his personalised plates.

I am currently going through the car, getting it ready to (hopefully) return to the road. I have been told that if the car is standard, the process should run smoothly but that if there have been any modifications the entire car will be subject to certification rather than just the modifications, essentially treating it as scratchbuilt. Another person has told me that only the modifications made from its original specification would need to be certified. Which piece of advice is correct? There are only a couple of things that need to be corrected or certified, as the case may be, but I'd like to get some sort of confirmation before I do work that may not be necessary.

Thanks for any help/guidance you can give.

Cheers,

Paul.

[Leon]

Hi Paul,

There's a couple of different possible outcomes, depending largely on how it was initially on the roads here. So I need to ask a couple of questions, so I can work out what the most correct answer is for your car.

When it was previously registered in NZ, was it called a Lotus, or was it called something else?

Was it on a "declaration"? That's the documentation that existed just prior to the LVV plates as we know them now.

Leon

[paul]

Hi Leon,

Many thanks for such a quick reply. It was registered with the manufacturer listed as Lotus and the model as Seven or Super Seven. There were 700-ish made with Lotus making around 600 in England and Steel Brothers making around 100 in NZ,first as CKD manufacturers and then locally manufacturing from factory Lotus jigs and moulds. Under their licence with Lotus, Steel Brothers also exported them to Australia and Asia. It was a large scale manufacture and predated the declaration system.

Cheers,

Paul.

[Leon]

Hi Paul,

Right, if it was registered in NZ in the 70's and 80's, and you can document trail that to the satisfaction of your entry certification agent (VTNZ, VINZ etc) then the vehicle would be registered again as a Lotus Seven / Super Seven.

So, modifications you do to that car that LVV would be looking at, would be considered as modifications to a production vehicle, so the modifications would be certified (eg: changed engine, custom suspension arms, different brakes etc). The entire vehicle would not be re-certified.

The other scenario which was possible, thus my question about how it was previously named and registered, is more complex.

If your vehicle had been (for example) registered under a modified vehicle declaration as a "Steel Bro's Replica Seven" (or something to that effect), and the registration had lapsed, or the vehicle had been modified, then in that situation the whole vehicle would require LVV certification for all aspects of the vehicle. Not just the changes you had subsequently made on the car.

So there are definitely some scenarios with older kit cars, that can present a lot of complication. All of which gets worse if there isn't sufficient evidence to link the current vehicle going through re-compliance, back to an old registration record.

Hopefully this has explained where I think you are at with your vehicle, and possibly the reason why some experts warned you that full re-certification might be required.

[paul]

Hi Leon,

That's great. Thanks for your help and for doing it so quickly. Much appreciated.

Cheers,

Paul.