Freestyle 7 spotted at Brooklands yesterday

[BBL-Sean]

ash73 said:

Trackdayguy said:

Was the Freestyle a noticeably better car, or is it just another special that has an over inflated price.

The front suspension was adjustable, which was a bit of a gimmick really but the trackday crowd got quite excited about it. It moved the front springs out of the airflow I guess.

Caterham used to refer builds to them if you bought a kit after the factory stopped assembling live axle classics, that's how mine got built by them. My car was standard.

The "gimmick" changed Caterham's standard widetrack front suspension from falling rate to a rising rate suspension using the pushrod, fulcrum, and inboard damper. This is the primary benefit of the inboard front end, with secondary benefit being the increased track width. This is straight out of suspension engineering 101, not personal opinion. The improvement was accomplished without significant weight gain, and was offered as a bolt-on option to improve just the front suspension, or as a complete car which also incorporated Freestyle's innovations in other areas, such as the front anti-roll bar and the super-wide rear. Consequently, some saw it as a noticeably better car. Others saw it as just another special that had an over-inflated price. But I have yet to run across anybody who has driven one that puts them self into the latter category.

But of course, I have a very biased opinion here.


edit -- DeDion rear, not live axle. The "super-wide" on the complete cars used the SV DeDion tube and modified radius arms at the rear, and front was +100mm wider than the Caterham wide track front suspension.

Edited by BBL-Sean on Sunday 18th November 03:38

[PiersR]

They were all very special cars made by Gary and Len. Without doubt, they will become even more collectable than they are now.

I am lucky to live near Stephen, so I see L7 FST often and it is a very nice 7. We do local blat's in Kent, but keeping up is a problem !!! At the London to Brighton on November 4th, it was parked next to another and they looked great.


Piers

[Some Gump]

Only have experience of the Freestyle "blade" adjustable front ARB. That was a brilliant design, much much better than swapping bars in and out (or more realistically doing a whole year wishing you had the time to swap another bar in, putting up with what you had)...

I'd love to have a try of their pushrod setup, it looks like it'd be really beneficial.

[Mitch911]

You may be able to get access to Freestyle designs if you speak to Boss Racing