RE: Caterham Announces Official Performance Arm

[STASH]

POINT TAKEN ROB77 BUT £115 GRAND IS STILL A HELL OF A LOT OF MONEY AND BET THE FIRST ATOM IT COMES UP AGAINST WILL EITHER BE QUICKER OR GIVE IT A GOOD RUN FOR ITS MONEY FOR A FRACTION OF THE PRICE

[LathamJohnP]

STASH said:

POINT TAKEN ROB77 BUT £115 GRAND IS STILL A HELL OF A LOT OF MONEY AND BET THE FIRST ATOM IT COMES UP AGAINST WILL EITHER BE QUICKER OR GIVE IT A GOOD RUN FOR ITS MONEY FOR A FRACTION OF THE PRICE

Mark,

The Caps Lock key is your friend. Please use it, my brain hurts reading that.

John

[RobM77]

LathamJohnP said:

STASH said:

POINT TAKEN ROB77 BUT £115 GRAND IS STILL A HELL OF A LOT OF MONEY AND BET THE FIRST ATOM IT COMES UP AGAINST WILL EITHER BE QUICKER OR GIVE IT A GOOD RUN FOR ITS MONEY FOR A FRACTION OF THE PRICE

Mark,

The Caps Lock key is your friend. Please use it, my brain hurts reading that.

John

Other friends include: , . ; and :

[ewenm]

I don't think anyone is expecting many of these to sell but there are people out there for whom the "ultimate Caterham" is a tempting purchase and £115k will not be particularly detrimental to them.

[RobM77]

STASH said:

Point taken Rob, but £115k is still a hell of a lot of money. I bet the first Atom it comes up against will either be quicker, or give it a good run for its money, at a fraction of the price.

Yes, you're absolutely right. Atom, Brooke, Lotus 2-11 and regular Caterham are all available for £30k to £40k and all of them will be as much fun as you'll ever need on road and track. The existence of this hyper-Caterham shouldn't detract from how good their regular cars are, or indeed whether they are value for money over a Westfield or Dax etc (for which the consensus is generally that they are).

I would argue though that this new Caterham is pitched as a sort of hyper-trackday car, like the Caparo. Like the Caparo, I'd also reckon on it being a bit of an engineering and marketing exercise more than anything, and we should applaud it for what it is - as a pretty cool exercise in how mad and fast a given type of car can be.

[STASH]

seem to remember a busa engined rush went around the top gear circuit in the same time as the koenigegg so they must handle and ride well enough lets see what the caterham can do if they will let them have it.

ps is that better john

[RobM77]

STASH said:

seem to remember a busa engined rush went around the top gear circuit in the same time as the koenigegg so they must handle and ride well enough lets see what the caterham can do if they will let them have it.

ps is that better john

That's better thanks, yes

The CSR260 has actually already beaten the Koenigsegg's time; do a You Tube search and you'll find the lap. The Top Gear circuit's a bit silly really though, as it's all about pure power. The order of the lap times there doesn't bear much relation to lap times at any other race circuit that I know of.

[turbochris]

RobM77 said:

ewenm said:

Fatbloke said:

regroo said:

Fatbloke said:

and i hope they do something with the caravan rear lights coz the gallery don't show any rear lights at all

and for £115k i'd want more than caravan lights

because if you spend just £28.5k with Caterham the caravan lights can fall of on the first day of ownership :-(

I dont think you ever owned a Caterham, if you did why did you buy it as you obviously count creature comforts above the driving expereince. 'Caraven lights' eh, yep mine (SLR) has those as well along with 400HP/tonne which tends to make me overlook what is on the back of the car. I suggest a Lexus and a rug old chap and leave the thrills alone.

You dont get it, which is fine. But sgging off a car that has received more rave reviews than just about anythig else along with winning pretty much every class it has entered is just plain dumb.

you wouldn't have over looked the fact that both the rear wheels pointed left with your 400 bhp/per tonne, would you?
or the fact the your car couldn't retain a gear that you engaged
that your car wouldn't start and when it did start it was rougher that my face on a bad day, then wouldn't stop running when you switched the fooKER OFF.......
no no, you'd be missing the point that i used my R300 everyday for the 7 months and the 6000 miles i owned it for, well when it wasn't being looked at by Caterham.....missed it by miles....

sorry old bean, you and every one else can say what you like

they're sheds

old sheds

Ah, reasoning by anecdote, excellent.

I used mine as an only car for 5 years and didn't have any of the problems you list - does that make it 1-1 on the shed/not-shed scores? I've heard that there's a Porsche owner that's had multiple problems with their car - they must all be sheds too I guess

Thanks. I was about to post the same thing I think what fatbloke means is that his car was a shed. I had a BMW once that had 17 seperate faults with it; it didn't stop me buying another, I just inspected it more carefully. Every month at the local Caterham meet we have 20 or 30 people turn up, and every single one of them is over the moon with their Caterhams.

The Caterham 7 is an amazing car. Faster than almost anything round a track, even with a very small engine (mine has the least powerful engine available at 115bhp and will lap Brands in 54 seconds, which is 3 seconds faster than an Esprit Sport 350...). Together with that pace you get, unusually, incredible driveability. The playfullness of the handling on a Caterham has to experienced to be believed. On my first track day I had the thing sideways at 80mph with a grin on my face! On top of both these things, also unusually, you get a car that is surprisingly practical - ewenm uses his every day and I know others that do the same. Plus, they only cost £10k to £30k! Plus, my VVC cost me about £300 a year to insure, did 40mpg and ran for three years on the same brake pads and tyres, only needing one wheel bearing replaced! Cheapest car I've ever run. I just can't think of a bad word to say about Caterhams. Other than fatbloke's one of course

Edited by RobM77 on Tuesday 26th February 16:24

Just to add to the above (Well said).... My Caterham Roadsport R300 has done over 90,000 miles now, and it has NEVER failed to start! All I have had to replace is ware and tear items, front shocks at 75K, cam belt, a couble of SV's and wheel bearings, and had all the stone chips removed last year. Engine is origional as is the gear box! It still drives as good as the day I got it! Infact I have driven a nearly new R300 SV (vvc) and it didnt feel as quick + you dont get the to die for noise from the roller bearing throttle! I owned a tiger kit car beore the Caterham and there is no contest, the build quality and reliability of a Caterham is second to none compared with other varients!

Anyone got a Caterham with over 90K on the clock?? I think mine has to up there with the highest miles in the country!?!?

[rhinochopig]

RobM77 said:

STASH said:

seem to remember a busa engined rush went around the top gear circuit in the same time as the koenigegg so they must handle and ride well enough lets see what the caterham can do if they will let them have it.

ps is that better john

That's better thanks, yes

The CSR260 has actually already beaten the Koenigsegg's time; do a You Tube search and you'll find the lap. The Top Gear circuit's a bit silly really though, as it's all about pure power. The order of the lap times there doesn't bear much relation to lap times at any other race circuit that I know of.

...and the busa westy was timed quicker than an R500 by the old CCC mag (which prefered the westy BTW). There's very little in it with these cars, circuit, tyre type and pressure all have such a big effect on these type of cars. Its starting to sound like school kids arguing over which is best: the ZX spectrum or the C64? All seven types are FUN when compared to normal road cars.

And regardless of which seven you buy/own, the build quality is never going to be as good as a mass produced car. But then you don't buy them for that. 115k is still too expensive though

[ewenm]

turbochris said:

Anyone got a Caterham with over 90K on the clock?? I think mine has to up there with the highest miles in the country!?!?

Mine's just shy of 100k but DannyBoy on Blatchat is well on his way to 200k

[RobM77]

rhinochopig said:

RobM77 said:

STASH said:

seem to remember a busa engined rush went around the top gear circuit in the same time as the koenigegg so they must handle and ride well enough lets see what the caterham can do if they will let them have it.

ps is that better john

That's better thanks, yes

The CSR260 has actually already beaten the Koenigsegg's time; do a You Tube search and you'll find the lap. The Top Gear circuit's a bit silly really though, as it's all about pure power. The order of the lap times there doesn't bear much relation to lap times at any other race circuit that I know of.

...and the busa westy was timed quicker than an R500 by the old CCC mag (which prefered the westy BTW). There's very little in it with these cars, circuit, tyre type and pressure all have such a big effect on these type of cars. Its starting to sound like school kids arguing over which is best: the ZX spectrum or the C64? All seven types are FUN when compared to normal road cars.

And regardless of which seven you buy/own, the build quality is never going to be as good as a mass produced car. But then you don't buy them for that. 115k is still too expensive though

My original statement was that the Caterham in the Mark Hales test had less power than its rivals but was quicker despite this, and that was what was special, not that it was faster. Anything's gonna be fast with enough power, that's not big or clever! (just fit a DFV and be done with it! ) An R500 has 230bhp, how much did this Westfield have?

I still stand by my statement, learned from reading many car mags over the years and through first hand experience; that a Caterham is significantly better to drive than a replica and, given the same power and weight, is usually faster.

[rubystone]

DJC said:

So anyway, again with the question:

This is nothing to do with Caterham right? This is just a product from an engine company putting their engine into a Caterham chassis they have bought?
Then adding some bling.


Is there any options from either this mob or Caterham of them just putting the non supercharged 400pony version in a Caterham? Ive not interest in £100k bling silly things, but a basic 400BHP Caterham at £35k...then hell yes!

Yes they'll build you a natasp one but you'd need to suply the base Caterham too in order to get anywhere near that £35k figure....and don't bother going to Caterham, speak to Russell at RS/Motapower/whaever

[rubystone]

edited as point had already been made further up in thread!

Edited by rubystone on Thursday 28th February 17:10

[Miguel]

RobM77 said:

rhinochopig said:

RobM77 said:

STASH said:

seem to remember a busa engined rush went around the top gear circuit in the same time as the koenigegg so they must handle and ride well enough lets see what the caterham can do if they will let them have it.

ps is that better john

That's better thanks, yes

The CSR260 has actually already beaten the Koenigsegg's time; do a You Tube search and you'll find the lap. The Top Gear circuit's a bit silly really though, as it's all about pure power. The order of the lap times there doesn't bear much relation to lap times at any other race circuit that I know of.

...and the busa westy was timed quicker than an R500 by the old CCC mag (which prefered the westy BTW). There's very little in it with these cars, circuit, tyre type and pressure all have such a big effect on these type of cars. Its starting to sound like school kids arguing over which is best: the ZX spectrum or the C64? All seven types are FUN when compared to normal road cars.

And regardless of which seven you buy/own, the build quality is never going to be as good as a mass produced car. But then you don't buy them for that. 115k is still too expensive though

My original statement was that the Caterham in the Mark Hales test had less power than its rivals but was quicker despite this, and that was what was special, not that it was faster. Anything's gonna be fast with enough power, that's not big or clever! (just fit a DFV and be done with it! ) An R500 has 230bhp, how much did this Westfield have?

I still stand by my statement, learned from reading many car mags over the years and through first hand experience; that a Caterham is significantly better to drive than a replica and, given the same power and weight, is usually faster.

Rob, do you have a link to access that Mark Hales test? I'd love to read it, too. TIA

Miguel

[Miguel]

Mars said:

rhinochopig said:

IMHO 400/500bhp in a seven is just too much for a road car.

You have a throttle pedal which modulates the amount of bhp the engine gives. You don't have to use all of the available bhp at all times.

For anyone who thinks that 400 hp, let alone 500, is too much for a Seven under any circumstances (and I include myself in that group), wouldn't it be better to save over 70,000 pounds and not have to always be backing off the throttle? ;-)

Miguel

[stratosUSA]

anyone raving about this engine for a road car is crazy. Go to the radical web site and look up the maintainance scedule for this SRV8 engine. No "just nipping to the pub" in this one!

[maclf01]

wiler said:

www.rsperformance.co.uk

thankyou!

[turbochris]

ewenm said:

turbochris said:

Anyone got a Caterham with over 90K on the clock?? I think mine has to up there with the highest miles in the country!?!?

Mine's just shy of 100k but DannyBoy on Blatchat is well on his way to 200k

Blimy... Thats alot of Caterham miles!!! What models have you got?? Origional engine?

[atom-ick]

stratosUSA said:

anyone raving about this engine for a road car is crazy. Go to the radical web site and look up the maintainance scedule for this SRV8 engine. No "just nipping to the pub" in this one!

This is an entirely different engine though - as i understand it, because the engine uses bike technology in it's design, it is not over stressed as all the components are capable of much higher RPM's.

[ewenm]

turbochris said:

ewenm said:

turbochris said:

Anyone got a Caterham with over 90K on the clock?? I think mine has to up there with the highest miles in the country!?!?

Mine's just shy of 100k but DannyBoy on Blatchat is well on his way to 200k

Blimy... Thats alot of Caterham miles!!! What models have you got?? Origional engine?

Mine's now a 1.8VVC car (replaced the 1.6 engine a while back with one from an MG TF Trophy 160 - no problems just easy way to more power). Can't remember what's in Dan's.