Pre litigation ?!?

[nevpugh308]

What does "pre litigation" mean when refering to Westfields (in adverts) ?

I presume they got taken to court (by Caterham ?) but what does this mean in terms of the actual car itself ... ?

Thanks

[anonymous-user]

yeah, pre-lit cars were built prior to the court action that forced westfield to change "their" designs.
Major amendments were made to the body, rear arches and bonnet, and the ridge was built into the sides so the body does not drop from the bonnet vertically like a caterham. Other changes, if i recall rightly, were to the reat suspension and the front lighting position.
Most pre-lit cars were crossflows but a few were a series engines. I think they would be pre 1988.

[nevpugh308]

So it was all purely cosmetic then ?

[anonymous-user]

i think westfield had to change their rear suspension design. they launched the independant rear suspension set up shortly afterwards if i remember rightly as my father went to look at one in the early nineties. on the whole though, i think it was mostly cosmetic.
some pre-lit cars come with supports for the roll hoop very similar to caterhams present design so i presume westfield were ordered to change it to the present unsupported hoop.

[juansolo]

Pre-lits are an almost identical copy of a Series 3 Lotus 7. As Caterham bought the rights to produce these from Lotus they sued Westfield and won. The result of this action was that Westfield had to change the bodywork of their cars and have had a significant chip on their shoulder ever since. I suppose this was because they were the only manufacturer taken to court and there are/were plenty of others doing it. Though admittedly at the time there's was the closest to the Lotus original.