2008 Caterham

Caterham R500 Duratec IRS

This car was built by Owain Davies when he worked at Caterham in the design and engineering department. He wanted to see what a new R500 would be like with the IRS setup from the 260CSR in the back of the traditional narrow body S3 chassis and having owned both a standard R500 and this I can tell you he created a stunning car.

The IRS setup, using standard CSR parts on a CAD designed custom lazer cut rear end on the S3 chassis give the car a completely new level of mechanical grip and composure. With the larger 15" wheels on the car that give over a 1/3 more contact patch the car goes from being always sideways on wide open throttle all the time to planted and just grips and goes (has launch control if you really want to test neck muscles). Of course you can still easily overwhelm the rears with power whenever you want but now you can choose to get all that power on the road.

The car was built to be as light as possible, corner weighted with 1/3 tank of fuel was 512kg. It was carbon bulkhead, carbon airbox, carbon headlights with integrated indicators, carbon CSR wings set very tight to tires which look stunning, carbon knee guards, real carbon rocker cover with colour match slash on it, aluminum rear light mounts in satin black (has the traditional coloured rear light lenses as the clear ones standard on the R500 looked a little tacky on the orange car to me, gold leaf heat shielding around the engine (same stuff as a Mac F1!), everything to keep weight down.

If have added a couple of comfort bits as just back from a blast to the Canary Islands and back to visit the stunning sunny mountain roads there so it currently has the Oxted trimming tunnel side panels in carbon leather with extra heat proofing and the tillet seat pads. This made covering 1000 mile in two days across Spain an easy comfortable trip. Dash picture still shows in km after my Spanish trip hence showing 13000 kms or 8100 miles. Sorry didn't push the buttons for miles before taking the photos.

Car was repainted from its original florescent yellow as after five years it was starting to fade and I like my cars perfect so now it is in Lambo pearl orange with the carbon all in fresh clear lacquer, interior repainted in semi gloss black as original tidy up a couple of the normal harness and foot scratches, wheels stripped and painted black with the orange pin stripe painted on under the lacquer in body colour. At the same time I renewed the 6 point FIA belts as again the old ones were looking a little faded against the new paintwork. Overall it looks like a 1 month old car.

Only selling as off working overseas for the next 3 years and its too sad just leaving it in storage. It is currently at the excellent garaged com located near Gatwick and available to view there anytime.

I have lots of build information on the car from Owain and full history of the car.

Anything I've forgotten please just ask, email is easiest or contact Umair at garaged com on 0845 519 5070