Caterham Superlight Twenty

[Spaceibiza]

3 years ago, I had been a Caterham owner for a couple of years and in that time, it had persuaded me that I couldn’t not have one in my life. It had introduced me to the fun of track days and despite its relatively low power (140bhp sigma supersport) It was so good on track, but great on the road too.

In 2016, the Superlight Twenty model was announced and I fell in love with its naked aluminium and carbon fibre body, but it also had a great spec. 6 speed gearbox, larger brakes, carbon stats and interior panels. Even though I had decided I didn’t ever want to sell my Caterham, this car was going to persuade me. Except there was a problem. I couldn’t afford to upgrade at the time and they were a limited run of 20 cars. I missed the boat with getting a new one, but then a year later, number 16 of 20 came up for sale. I was in a better position financially by then, so my old car was quickly advertised and sold in the PistonHeads classifieds and I bought it! This was the first picture I took of it when I got it home.


First job was to have a go at polishing up the bodywork, as it had lost its shine somewhat. I soon started to realise how difficult and dirty polishing bare aluminium was. It looked a lot better, but I couldn’t get the uniform shine I was after. Here are some pictures after lots of hard work.

Edited by Noel7 on Thursday 26th March 21:37

[Spaceibiza]

Next job was the front grille. I wasn’t keen on the red 7 grille, so I painted it satin black like it was on the press car and also took a hacksaw to the horizontal support bars. I was really happy with the result. I also managed to assign my reg number too.

[Spaceibiza]

Next job was to ditch the windscreen and doors and fit the aeroscreen! For those of you that haven’t tried going full aero, it’s great and really adds to the experience! Then get out and enjoy driving the car.

[Spaceibiza]

Next was time for a little upgrade. The car has loads of carbon fibre, but then the standard Caterham rear lights looked a bit poor next to it. So I bought some carbon rear light housings from a company called Classic Carbon, which not only look a lot better, but are much lighter too. Definitely keeping in the spirit of the Superlight. The standard tail lights are really poor, especially with the clear rear lenses, so at the same time I fitted some LED light boards from Spiyder electronics. They work so much better than standard and are again lighter! I also fitted a motorsport rain light onto the x of my roll bar as a 3rd brake light just to be sure.

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|https://thumbsnap.com/688FGryu[/url]

[Spaceibiza]

My local circuit is Donington and I had done a few track days in my previous Caterham. I was keen to get it on track and see how it compared to my last one. My previous car was a 140bhp sigma supersport. This has the later Ti-VCT sigma engine which is rated at 135bhp. On the road, this new one actually felt a bit quicker and more lively. When I took it on track though, it was good, but maybe lacking something of the old car. I knew I wanted a bit more.

[Spaceibiza]

I booked it in with Caterham to get the 310r upgrade fitted. It consists of a pair of upgraded cams, air filter, spark plugs, an oil catch tank and remap with raised rev limit. This takes it up to 152bhp. Once this was fitted, I took it to Donington again and it really did made a difference. It felt a lot quicker and I was definitely happy with the extra performance.

[Church of Noise]

Awesome machine!
Following (share some videos if you'd have any!).

[Fonzey]

Great start, I didn't know these existed but that doesn't say much as my Caterham knowledge isn't the best.

Looks like a fab starting point though.

[GroundZero]

Very nice car.
Always liked Caterhams.
Looks good in the aluminium and black.

[Paynewright]

My seven was originally ally and a nightmare to keep clean so had it painted all yellow to match the fibreglass.

I wish I’d had it painted silver to emulate the ally which a few people have had done. TSK are the place to go for painting but south of the Thames!

Lovely looking car and reminiscent of the original K series Superlight from the late 90’s!

[DoubleD]

Looks good, but I can imagine that its a nightmare to keep clean.

[Spaceibiza]

It’s not actually that bad to keep clean. I only polish it over winter. Gives me something to do with the car when I can’t drive it with all of the salt on the roads. Once it’s polished up, you can wash it like you would a painted car.

[Spaceibiza]

Just to so you can see I do actually drive it and not afraid to get it dirty, I took it rallying, to watch Wales Rally GB! Parked in Sweet Lamb and hiked up to Hafren. We even had to pull Craig Breen out of a ditch!

[Noel7]

My next upgrade was getting the standard Momo steering wheel retrimmed. In my last Caterham, I had a suede Momo and I missed that. Instead of buying a new wheel, I thought I would get mine custom trimmed. This is the standard wheel.


I found Joe Wicox of North West Wheel Trims and I think you will agree, he has done a fantastic job! With my car being a Superlight Twenty, he custom embroidered the logo on the steering wheel. I think it looks great, and one of the best upgrades pound for pound that you can do!

[DoubleD]

Quality looks good. But its a bit too chunky for my liking.

[super7]

Spaceibiza said:

Next job was to ditch the windscreen and doors and fit the aeroscreen! For those of you that haven’t tried going full aero, it’s great and really adds to the experience! Then get out and enjoy driving the car.

Absolutely beautiful.... takes me back 23 years when I bought car no8 in exactly the same style!

[Noel7]

DoubleD said:

Quality looks good. But its a bit too chunky for my liking.

I think it looks more chunky in the pictures than it actually is. It doesn’t feel much more chunky than it was originally I think.

[Noel7]

super7 said:

Absolutely beautiful.... takes me back 23 years when I bought car no8 in exactly the same style!

That’s so good! Do you still have that car now?

[Noel7]

When I bought my car, it had half doors, but the previous owner wanted to keep these, as he was buying another 7 and wanted to fit them to that car. After a little while, I quite fancied getting some half doors for it. I ended up buying some used ones for it, but when I came to offer them up, all of the poppers were in different places. There was going to be now way of fitting them and looking right, so these were sold on. Then by off chance, I spoke to the original owner of my car and he had since sold the original half doors from my car to someone else, having then sold his other 7. I managed to get in touch with the person he sold them to and I bought them back. So now I had the original doors that fitted my popper configuration perfectly! I was very happy to get them back on the car!

[Noel7]

Next up was a trip to McMillan Motorsport in Hinckley. I wanted them to give the car a once over and do a flat floor setup on the suspension for my weight and driving style. I was also really keen to see how much the car actually weighed. Caterham quoted the weight of the Superlight Twenty as 498kg. Mine went on the scales with a quarter tank of fuel and it was 518kg. Thinking about it, the 498kg must have been a dry weight. Maybe on the lighter CR500 tyres and without a heater or track day roll bar or half doors that my car has. Being 20kg over seemed like a bit of a challenge to me. Try and get to 498kg, whilst still having fluids, some fuel and heater. Game on!