Caterham 7 or TVR
Discussion
A lad at work fancies a small hardcore sports car and i suggested a caterham. There have been a few meetings where the RAW strikers have been racing and the lap times are comparable with caterhams of similiar power, they look well built and pretty tasty! I think any of these cars if theyve been put together well then there fine, as previously mentioned, but once youve had a caterham i dont think you can think of anything else wether it be the residuals, the origionality, the following whatever the reason.
Power wise i love my mates roadsport, couple years old, boot it all day reliable, easy on fuel, good in the wet. I had an R400 198hp on the RR, a great PTWR, and lovely off the line, more power seems to make this difficult.
Sounds like a stonker of an engine......was that with CAT, when fitted my engine dropped 12hp MSA regs unfortunatly.
Power wise i love my mates roadsport, couple years old, boot it all day reliable, easy on fuel, good in the wet. I had an R400 198hp on the RR, a great PTWR, and lovely off the line, more power seems to make this difficult.
Sounds like a stonker of an engine......was that with CAT, when fitted my engine dropped 12hp MSA regs unfortunatly.
sam919 said:
...the RAW strikers have been racing and the lap times are comparable with caterhams of similiar power ...but once youve had a caterham i dont think you can think of anything else wether it be the residuals, the origionality, the following whatever the reason.
I wouldn't say that, necessarily. 
sam919 said:
A lad at work fancies a small hardcore sports car and i suggested a caterham. There have been a few meetings where the RAW strikers have been racing and the lap times are comparable with caterhams of similiar power, they look well built and pretty tasty! I think any of these cars if theyve been put together well then there fine, as previously mentioned, but once youve had a caterham i dont think you can think of anything else wether it be the residuals, the origionality, the following whatever the reason.
The Striker is fairly commonly regarded to be the best handling of the Seven type cars (the real thing included). It is, however, basic even by kit car standards and they're a far more involved kit. The upshot - as with any kit, but more so - is that a good one can be excellent and a poor one can be diabolical. The Caterham kit, on the other hand, is said to be virtually idiot proof. If a moron like me tried to build it, it should come out more or less as good as a car built by an expert; that's not the case with all the other kits.I seriously looked at buying a Striker before I bought the Caterham. It was a beautifully built example, which had hundreds of hours lavished on it by a professional machinist. It had picked up a couple of club sprint championship wins and still looked immaculate. I have no doubt it would have given my Caterham a very good run for its money on track, plus at £6 or 7k, although decidedly expensive for a Striker, it was half the price of some of the Sevens I was looking at.
In the end the reason I went for the Caterham was the belief that it'll still be worth twice as much as the Striker when I come to sell it, and the gap may even grow. When the time comes there's always a market for secondhand Caterhams, whereas with something a bit more specialist you need the right buyer to come along. Plus, before then, there's practically a Caterham owner on every street corner ready to lend help and advice and even a reasonable number of dealers and specialists if you get really stuck. Ignoring the Blactchat politics I've found them to be the best hands on owners' group I've been involved with and also a very friendly enthusiastic bunch.
Chris71 said:
The upshot - as with any kit, but more so - is that a good one can be excellent and a poor one can be diabolical.
I have a factory build Caterham and you don't want to know how many times the bloody thing broke down. 
As of this morning I had to take the other car as it didn't want to start, again...
Chris71 said:
The Striker is fairly commonly regarded to be the best handling of the Seven type cars (the real thing included). It is, however, basic even by kit car standards and they're a far more involved kit. The upshot - as with any kit, but more so - is that a good one can be excellent and a poor one can be diabolical.
<snip>
I seriously looked at buying a Striker before I bought the Caterham. It was a beautifully built example, which had hundreds of hours lavished on it by a professional machinist. It had picked up a couple of club sprint championship wins and still looked immaculate. I have no doubt it would have given my Caterham a very good run for its money on track, plus at £6 or 7k, although decidedly expensive for a Striker, it was half the price of some of the Sevens I was looking at.
Another great thing about Caterham Sevens is that if you do bend it and you are<snip>
I seriously looked at buying a Striker before I bought the Caterham. It was a beautifully built example, which had hundreds of hours lavished on it by a professional machinist. It had picked up a couple of club sprint championship wins and still looked immaculate. I have no doubt it would have given my Caterham a very good run for its money on track, plus at £6 or 7k, although decidedly expensive for a Striker, it was half the price of some of the Sevens I was looking at.
someone said:
a moron like me
you can easily get it repaired to a standard rather better/quicker than you could if you had bought a car without such a good support network.So, has the OP's 7 vs TVR vs Elise debate been settled now (one way or another)?
For me the TVR and the Elise are closer competitors to each other than they are to the Caterham. Although they're very different, both are capable of covering significant distances in comfort and pretty regular use. It just breaks down to the sharper, more agile, more affordable Lotus, against the more practical, more sonorous and (IMHO) far more charismatic TVR. Either way, I would have no qualms about driving either to Scotland and back in the rain and, in the TVR, with a couple of suitcases in the boot too.
Yes, you can do that in a Caterham as well (well, maybe not the suitcase bit), but I think that'd be missing the point. It's not really a touring car, it's there for an hour long blast around some twisty B-roads or better still a track - kind of like a 4-wheeled superbike. It'd almost certainly be the cheapest of the three to run (particularly because you're more likely to have a go at doing things yourself) and also the fastest point-to-point.
Having owned both at different times (okay, my TVR was only the baby of the range, but I've driven others...) what I'd really like to do is keep both - a TVR for cruising at 7/10ths on the road and a 7 for flat out blasts on the track.
For me the TVR and the Elise are closer competitors to each other than they are to the Caterham. Although they're very different, both are capable of covering significant distances in comfort and pretty regular use. It just breaks down to the sharper, more agile, more affordable Lotus, against the more practical, more sonorous and (IMHO) far more charismatic TVR. Either way, I would have no qualms about driving either to Scotland and back in the rain and, in the TVR, with a couple of suitcases in the boot too.
Yes, you can do that in a Caterham as well (well, maybe not the suitcase bit), but I think that'd be missing the point. It's not really a touring car, it's there for an hour long blast around some twisty B-roads or better still a track - kind of like a 4-wheeled superbike. It'd almost certainly be the cheapest of the three to run (particularly because you're more likely to have a go at doing things yourself) and also the fastest point-to-point.
Having owned both at different times (okay, my TVR was only the baby of the range, but I've driven others...) what I'd really like to do is keep both - a TVR for cruising at 7/10ths on the road and a 7 for flat out blasts on the track.
I don't agree on that one. I could perfectly use the VX220 as a daily and on 1,500+ miles roadtrips. The same with the Caterham. Believe it or not, the seats in the Caterham are far more comfortable, too. The only downside would be that you won't be able to leave your luggage safely in the car. So, if no friends come along with other cars, it's best to pack as light as possible.
Chris71 said:
For me the TVR and the Elise are closer competitors to each other than they are to the Caterham.
Having owned examples of all three, I'm not sure about that one, either.Certainly the Elise sits somewhere between the Caterham and an equivalent generation TVR in terms of handling focus versus touring practicality, but I think that in both cases it sits closer to the Caterham.
I can't see a TVR ever pushing the same buttons as a precision driving tool, whereas the Elise can (apart from the godawful gearchange), and the TVR is so much more practical and comfortable that it is a long way further towards the GT/sports tourer end of the spectrum.
Sam_68 said:
Chris71 said:
For me the TVR and the Elise are closer competitors to each other than they are to the Caterham.
Having owned examples of all three, I'm not sure about that one, either.I never said they were similar to drive, just that if I wanted a car to blat round a track I'd go for the Caterham that provides all the right visceral sensations and makes even the Elise look a bit podgy and costly, but if I wanted a touring (possibly daily driving) sports car it'd be one of the others. You can famously get a set of golf clubs in the boot of a Chimaera; you'd struggle to accomodate the tees in a Seven.
Chris71 said:
...if I had to drive to Scotland tonight the TVR would be top of the list, the Elise a close second and the Caterham a distant third. Admittedly I am comparing a Caterham with plastic seats and a close ratio 'box to a nice comfy leather apolstered TVR that's running at not much more than half the Seven's engine speed on a motorway cruise.
Different perceptions I guess... I've run Caterhams and Westfields as my only car, and have done 400-mile round trips in a day in my FW400 (which is extreme even by 'Seven' standards). Equally, my trips in the Elise were limited to circa 100-130 mile stints before I had to get out and let the sensation return to my backside, so whilst the TVR would certainly be top of my list for a long trip, there wouldn't be such a big gap between the Elise and the Seven for me and they'd both be a considerable way behind the Blackpool Donkey.... whilst dynamically the opposite is true. The TVR is a long way behind the Elise and the Caterham (somewhere after the Skoda Estelle and the Adsa shopping trolley with a wobbly castor, in fact).
Edited by Sam_68 on Saturday 2nd January 13:45
Hasten to add I am not a golfist! Can't use my normal mountain bike analogy as none of the three will accomodate one inside.
I think one thing that's certainly true to say is Caterham owners tend to be more serious about driving than the TVR brigade - ultimately if you want to opposite lock it round a sprint course you're always better off with a structurally rigid, well balanced 500kg roller skate than a ton of nose heavy muscle car. Physics cannot be denied. However, because a lot of the owners tend to be more (how can I put this...) touring orientated, I think there are a lot of poorly setup TVRs out there, which make the gap appear wider than it is.
I know my S wasn't dealing with the loads that a healthy Griff 500 or Cerbera does, but that was horrendous when I first got it, yet sublime after a year of tweaking. Things happened a lot more slowly than they do in the Caterham. You got lots of warning through the (unassisted) steering and tall, relatively skinny tyres if something was about to happen and then it would breakaway very progressively. It was a very flattering car to drive quickly. The flipside was that it never felt especially agile and it still flexed somewhat, but those are really about the only complaints I can think of. It wasn't (and never would be) razor sharp like a Caterham, but I think the good ones are at least acceptable when you're properly going for it, and arguably a nicer environment when you're not. No doubt for a white knuckle ride I'd take the Seven, but you don't always get the opportunity to drive like that.
I think one thing that's certainly true to say is Caterham owners tend to be more serious about driving than the TVR brigade - ultimately if you want to opposite lock it round a sprint course you're always better off with a structurally rigid, well balanced 500kg roller skate than a ton of nose heavy muscle car. Physics cannot be denied. However, because a lot of the owners tend to be more (how can I put this...) touring orientated, I think there are a lot of poorly setup TVRs out there, which make the gap appear wider than it is.
I know my S wasn't dealing with the loads that a healthy Griff 500 or Cerbera does, but that was horrendous when I first got it, yet sublime after a year of tweaking. Things happened a lot more slowly than they do in the Caterham. You got lots of warning through the (unassisted) steering and tall, relatively skinny tyres if something was about to happen and then it would breakaway very progressively. It was a very flattering car to drive quickly. The flipside was that it never felt especially agile and it still flexed somewhat, but those are really about the only complaints I can think of. It wasn't (and never would be) razor sharp like a Caterham, but I think the good ones are at least acceptable when you're properly going for it, and arguably a nicer environment when you're not. No doubt for a white knuckle ride I'd take the Seven, but you don't always get the opportunity to drive like that.
Chris71 said:
I know my S wasn't dealing with the loads that a healthy Griff 500 or Cerbera does...
That's the point though, really, isn't it?I haven't driven an S, but I imagine that it's not too dissimilar to the Taimar, which wasn't a bad car at all (a bit clumsy compared to a Lotus, and prone to grounding its exhaust, but much better than an MGB or Triumph).
...but you're talking about virtually a 'classic', with not more than 160bhp and 160lb.ft of torque. It's a very different kettle of fish (and a different generation of chassis - semi trailing arms at the rear, for a start) to the V8 and S6 engined TVR's with 250+ bhp and 300+ lb.ft of torque. Remember that the Griffith/Chimaera generation and onwards evolved from the Tuscan race car chassis. Many of the Tuscans were set up by highly skilled race engineers, with trick dampers and much stiffer suspension than the road cars, yet still had a reputation for being lairy. Gerry Marshall (who knew a bit about lairy driving) drove one; to quote his race engineer (himself an ex-TVR development engineer): 'They're absolute monsters. All the cars are unstable under braking and it's so easy to swap ends...'.
Using the 'S' for comparison against the 'modern' TVR's would be akin to me arguing that modern Lotuses are unreliable, and citing my Elan as an example...
Maybe. I'm not convinced the average slightly asthmatic Chimaera 400 actually has that much more power than a healthy mildly-tweaked 2.9 S though, while it does have rather more chassis bracing. Certainly at 'someone else's car' speeds I found the Chimaera a very pleasant drive - less steering feedback than the S, but better in most respects. I don't quite understand the situation with the T-cars; the Tamora and T350 are generally thought to be fine handling cars, yet the (virtually mechanically identical) Tuscans are made out to be real widdow makers.
Either way, bravado aside, most people rarely drive on the ragged edge on the road. Without a doubt, the Caterham is more involving when you do (preferably on the track), but for me the sense of occasion (and the noise!) of a TVR makes the overall package a worthy contender for road use. They're like the elephant and the mosquito - they can both kill each other in very different ways...
Either way, bravado aside, most people rarely drive on the ragged edge on the road. Without a doubt, the Caterham is more involving when you do (preferably on the track), but for me the sense of occasion (and the noise!) of a TVR makes the overall package a worthy contender for road use. They're like the elephant and the mosquito - they can both kill each other in very different ways...
Chris71 said:
Certainly at 'someone else's car' speeds I found the Chimaera a very pleasant drive - less steering feedback than the S, but better in most respects.
Yes, that's a fair assessment - particularly when they're fitted with power steering. It's when you try to drive, ahem, briskly that the plot falls to pieces in a big way.Which is why I think they make nice sports tourers, but are deeply flawed as a 'focused' driver's car.
Chris71 said:
I don't quite understand the situation with the T-cars; the Tamora and T350 are generally thought to be fine handling cars, yet the (virtually mechanically identical) Tuscans are made out to be real widow makers.
Spring rates, mainly: ironically, the Tuscan was a deliberate attempt to make a 'softer', less intimidating car, but (from what I understand) Peter Wheeler still insisted on a very 'pointy' front end with very quick steering and sharp turn-in. The result is a bad mis-match between front and rear responses that gets very messy when it gets out of shape. allen l said:
Don't know too much about TVR. The question would be if the car has been designed so badly that it can never be a good drivers car, or that you could simply swap the the suspension.
I think there's only so wrong you can go with roughly correct weight distribution, lowish C of G and double wishbones all round. Who knows, maybe the TVR people are all massively biased, but the consensus is a well setup Griffith/Chimaera isn't all that bad and, as mentioned above, the T350 and Tamora always did very well in contemporary road tests.Sam - not wishing to be argumentative, but how many different spring and anti-roll bar rates did you try on your Griff? How many different types and specifications of tyres and dampers? How many different geometry settings? Have you driven examples both with and without PAS?
I'm willing to accept that there comes a point where the fixed geometry points of a car and the torsional rigidity of its chassis impose problems that cannot be masked. You have more experience of driving the big power Tivs than I do and you might be right, but I do find it a little surprising. My Caterham isn't handling quite as I'd like it to at the moment, but that's nothing that a new set of boots and the correct ARB settings won't solve. Not for a minute suggesting a TVR will ever be Caterham-like - it won't - but most second hand cars will have room for improvement, due to wear and previous owners' individual settings/usage. I know for a fact my Seven was very effective around Knockhill (it holds the RSA lap record there), but it's pretty useless on the B158 at the moment.
One of the things that sprang to mind was your comment about the Taimar. My dad's got an M-Series, which feels very different to drive than the S. Ironically, it has an almost completely opposite set of failings - betweeen the two somewhere is a very good car. As you pointed out, they're not that different under the skin, yet the 1600M was considered twitchy with all of 88bhp to play with and the S is perfectly docile to at least twice that.
Chris71 said:
Sam - not wishing to be argumentative, but how many different spring and anti-roll bar rates did you try on your Griff? How many different types and specifications of tyres and dampers? How many different geometry settings?
None. Without wishing to sound arrogant, I know enough about car set-up to be able to identify fundamental geometrical problems when I encounter them. All the spring, damper and ARB variations in the world won't cure kickback and tramlining through the steering when it's caused by the steering geometry. Similarly, I am absolutely convinced that the cause of the back end becoming unsettled in certain circumstances was down to roll centre movement, which has a geometric origin.
You can reduce both sets of symptoms by playing around with springs and dampers, but it's unlikely you will get rid of them altogether (witness, as I've pointed out previously, the many professionals working for the Tuscan race teams who tried and failed)... unless you simply stop the suspension moving enough to be effected by the geometry, which brings its own problems.
Once I'd identified the problem, and set-up the car so that the geometry was spot-on and the bump steer minimised, and found that I was still a long way from happy, I sought advice from the specialists. I got the same story from them all :'TADTS - it's as good as you're going to get it'.
At that point, I had to decide whether to start investing £thousands and many hours in decent, re-valveable dampers and spring/ARB variations, or whether to cut my losses.
I cut my losses...
Chris71 said:
Have you driven examples both with and without PAS?
Yes. And examples of some subsequent models (T350, Tuscan). The PAS does make a difference for the better, and the T350 in particular was getting toward being quite an acceptable car for sports touring... I could have been tempted, as a GT, if it wasn't for the chocolate engine. Ditto the Tuscan... if it wasn't for the S6's reputation, I could be tempted - it's prettier than the T350 and I can't see it taking much more than a change of springs and dampers and maybe a slower rack to sort it out to the same degree as the T350/Sagaris.
Edited by Sam_68 on Monday 4th January 07:11
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