New Caterham Seven revealed
Well, newish as Caterham goes back to basics with its latest Seven
Intriguingly Caterham is promising - in addition to less weight and money - "a super-compact, flexible and EU6-compliant engine." The powertrain, being developed with Caterham Technology & Innovation, also "stands a good chance" of being the most fuel efficient Seven ever.
CTI showed a neat integrated bolt-on chargecooler/supercharger unit earlier this year that could unleash the necessary fury in any off-the-shelf four-cylinder engine. Then again, with all this talk of fuel efficiency and weight saving maybe we're going to be getting a production version of the Ecoboost engined Seven we had a quick go with last year.
Neither is an especially simple solution of course, relative to the back to basics ethos or price point claimed for this new, as-yet unnamed new model.
With Caterham boss Graham Macdonald boasting "the new entry-level Seven will be uncomplicated, easy to run and, most important of all, an intuitive and exciting drive" we'll have to see exactly how this will be achieved but, for now, the promise of a more affordable Seven has to be good news for all of us.
Longer term, where is the Caterham Twizzy ? Moulded roof,vestigal doors, low capacity battery with powerfull rear mounted motors ? Have a look at the used Caterhams for sale - lack of range wouldn't appear to be a big problem.
Compared to mainstream manufscturers, Caterham are already most of the way there in terms of low vehicle weight.
Either way great job Caterham, it's great to have a replacement for the classic keeping the marque close to the original ethos :-)
And I agree, I would have thought the new Ecoboost engine would add cost not reduce it.
Or doors...
I'm afraid I can't spot any.
Pointless.
I also notice that the photo has been nicked from here.
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