The brainchild of Lawrie Bond and Charles Panther, the Berkeley sports car originated an internal project within the Berkeley Coachworks Factory, a British manufacturer of caravans. Using glass-reinforced plastic technology, the little Berkeley microcars preceded Lotus' first production street car for nearly a year, and scored multiple awards in sub-750cc endurance racing.

This particular vehicle is a very early example within the SE492's production run of 666 cars.