Caterham 160 the dinky one - who's built/run/bought one

[cptsideways]

Thought I'd ask in general gassing first, so who has bought, built or is driving the new model Caterham 160 aka the Dinky Toy one with the Suzuki engine?


I have owned & or driven pretty much every variant of car you can possibly imagine. Quite frankly I'm bored of most of them often for a specific reason. I quite like a build project & one of these Dinky Toy &'s rather fits the bill.

There is also a historical family reason for wanting to build one. My late dad built one of the first Austin Seven Specials that later became & developed into the Seven as we now know them. I'd love to build a "New Austin Seven Special" but not sure it would be practical to do so & I hate rust or bolts I don't have the right size metric spanner for

I have driven many a fast Caterham in anger, in fact spent far too long working in them, fast ones I found a bit too fast for the road If I'm honest, great on track though. Don't want a fast one I know that for sure.


So do tell your experiences, are values holding up? did you build it yourself? is it more fun than that first date at 15?

As an example last year I did 9k miles in the new MX-5 90% of it with the roof down, loved it, but I can't build one myself. Last month spent some time drooling over several Seven Specials but don't really do vintage if I'm honest. My Daily driver to work for the past two years has 64bhp, its more "fun to drive" than the 564bhp I frequently jump into at work.


Yes I know I'm an odd customer !

[cptsideways]

Vitorio said:

cptsideways said:

As an example last year I did 9k miles in the new MX-5 90% of it with the roof down, loved it, but I can't build one myself.

This might not fit with the hate of rust and seized bolts, but old mx-5 + supercharger/turbo-kit and a Mev-exocet kit?

Been there & done that, had a few MX-5's & built a turbo'd one 10 years ago before all the rage. You will not get me anywhere near a MEV Heapofst except to point out the hideous engineering flaws in the chassis if you can even call it a chassis. Old yes, flawed engineering no.

[cptsideways]

Back to the Dinky Toy


Could you build one to look like an original one?



I do like the old ones, I have little knowledge of them TBH willing to learn but would it be sacrilage to make one look vintage?



My dad built one of these in the fifties which was started these Seven thing off

[cptsideways]

EDLT said:

cptsideways said:

Could you build one to look like an original one?

The bodywork fits fairly closely to the chassis which is bigger than the original to accommodate larger engines and customers. I don't think you'd ever get the proportions right without chopping it up.

I am quite surprised at just how similar they are though. There are some things I hate about the new one, like the gash light units that look like something off a trailer board.

Has anybody done a "Retro-Mod" my brother does it with bikes, with some rather cool results.

[cptsideways]

I think its fair to MEV is the epitome of poor design & execution there is not one redeeming feature from an engineering point of view. It makes me wince everytime I see one mentioned.

Has anybody built their own 160 by the way?