Does anyone know the low-down on the Caterham/Caged saga?
Discussion
I was up-to-date a long time ago - I remember Caged were involved with developing the new Laser cut tubing and panels for Caterham - and the robotic welding jigs.
After that I sort of lost track of things and recently saw a post showing the new frames being made on jigs that are sort of old school again - no sign of any robots.
Does anyone have any idea what went wrong?
After that I sort of lost track of things and recently saw a post showing the new frames being made on jigs that are sort of old school again - no sign of any robots.
Does anyone have any idea what went wrong?
I posted the pictures that I took at the Westbury chassis works recently.
I’m new to the world of Caterham and a friend of a friend suggested that I looked in at the chassis works. I went on a Saturday morning and the manager showed me round.
As I understand it Caged worked as a supplier to Caterham, the core business got into trouble and Caterham decided to buy the business. I guess in part this was to protect their supply line and in part to allow them to make chassis in-house. There are no robotic processes here, the tubes come to the factory from an external supplier completely pre-cut, shaped and drilled. They use jigs at the factory first tack-welding and then later finishing. Panels are shaped and fitted. The output is about 12 chassis per weeks and the finished units are packed into stillages for transport to Caterham. Work is split between two buildings on a low key industrial estate.
This is not “state of the art” manufacturing but it is a team of skilled guys turning out a good product in an environment that is far more process efficient than that many of us will remember from those days of British low volume car building.
The new Caterham kart chassis will also be produced at Westbury, the first few demo units had been made not long before my visit last month.
I have kept in touch with the manager who showed me round, he is hugely enthusiastic about the product and his team and I’m sure would be happy to extend the same courtesy to others. If there was sufficient interest perhaps a group tour could be arranged.
I’m new to the world of Caterham and a friend of a friend suggested that I looked in at the chassis works. I went on a Saturday morning and the manager showed me round.
As I understand it Caged worked as a supplier to Caterham, the core business got into trouble and Caterham decided to buy the business. I guess in part this was to protect their supply line and in part to allow them to make chassis in-house. There are no robotic processes here, the tubes come to the factory from an external supplier completely pre-cut, shaped and drilled. They use jigs at the factory first tack-welding and then later finishing. Panels are shaped and fitted. The output is about 12 chassis per weeks and the finished units are packed into stillages for transport to Caterham. Work is split between two buildings on a low key industrial estate.
This is not “state of the art” manufacturing but it is a team of skilled guys turning out a good product in an environment that is far more process efficient than that many of us will remember from those days of British low volume car building.
The new Caterham kart chassis will also be produced at Westbury, the first few demo units had been made not long before my visit last month.
I have kept in touch with the manager who showed me round, he is hugely enthusiastic about the product and his team and I’m sure would be happy to extend the same courtesy to others. If there was sufficient interest perhaps a group tour could be arranged.
Use Blat chat and the tech talk thread http://www.blatchat.com/f.asp?id=8 for technical and Chit chat for background gossip etc
an example of news in http://www.blatchat.com/t.asp?id=118096
Piston heads is good but for the enthusiastic detail an example is I have a Arch chassis but a Metric FIA Roll bar in tech talk you will see discussions about what was a new role bar
an example of news in http://www.blatchat.com/t.asp?id=118096
Piston heads is good but for the enthusiastic detail an example is I have a Arch chassis but a Metric FIA Roll bar in tech talk you will see discussions about what was a new role bar
Forums | Caterham | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff