The Caterham Superlight R500 has broken the world road car record for
speeding from standing to 100mph and then back to standing, completing the test
in an astounding 11.44 seconds.
The
previous record time of 11.50 seconds had been set in 1999, in a McLaren F1 LM
car, specifically shod in bespoke race tyres.
The 0-100-0 test was conducted a fortnight ago at Bruntingthorpe airfield. It
was part of a series of tests conducted annually by the editorial team from
Autocar Magazine.
Test co-ordinator, Steve Sutcliffe commented: ‘In our experience 0-100-0
is the defining test of what is – and what isn’t – a genuinely rapid road
car. Ideally your entrant will be light, very powerful, have great traction, a
snappy gear change, well laid-out pedals and, most importantly of all maybe, a
massive – and friendly to use- set of stoppers.
Overall, the R500 finished third in the test, beaten only by two race cars -
the Jaguar R3 Formula 1 car and a 477bhp Gould Cosworth Hillclimb car.
The Caterham beat the Pagani C12 S (11.84 seconds), the Porsche 911 Turbo
(13.02 seconds) and the Lamborghini Murcielago (13.90 seconds).
Caterham’s Managing Director, Simon Nearn, was delighted with the result:
‘When we created the R500, we spared nothing in our determination to reduce
weight and then packed all the performance into it we could. We designed it
specifically to go fast and stop fast. I am not surprised we finished top of the
pile!’
The complete test results are in the 25th September edition of Autocar.
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