Caterham questions

[jaker]

Hi All,

Went to the Caterham showroom this week and was VERY impressed. It took a will of iron not to part with the deposit.

a few questions I have though:

I am thinking along the lines of an R300... what options are necessary on this (road and track use)?

Anyone know Freestyle Motorsport? They do Duratec engined SLRs with inboard suspension...

Are Caterhams really worth the extra cash over the opposition?

Many thanks in advance...

jaker

[bertie]

jaker said:

Hi All, Went to the Caterham showroom this week and was VERY impressed. It took a will of iron not to part with the deposit. a few questions I have though: I am thinking along the lines of an R300... what options are necessary on this (road and track use)? Anyone know Freestyle Motorsport? They do Duratec engined SLRs with inboard suspension... Are Caterhams really worth the extra cash over the opposition? Many thanks in advance... jaker

In order,options, depends on how serious you intend on being on track days.
If you fancy the odd play, nothing more required than the FIA roll bar and 4 point harnesses, if you intend to be more serious and certainly if you want to play with slicks, you want a dry sump and LSD.

Freestyle are very good but you might pay at re-sale time with it not being a factory standard car.

Worth the extra?....Having had a Westfield.....Yes.

[c7 cya]

first thing to do is a have a drive of an r300 make sure that you are comfortable with the drive, if its a throttle body which i have and would recommend i would make sure ur ok with the kanagarooing. I looked into buying a brand new r300 from caterham and with options i wanted which were not out of the ordinary the bill was nearly 30k. I lookly managed to pick up an 04 plate in immaculate condition for just over 21k from millwoods, and more to the point it already had all my options on it. If you wanna know about r300's imparticular try www.r300.net its great for info and everyone is extremely helpful. any questions give a shout. P.S R300'S are bonkers

[jackal]

hey jaker

you really need to wait

new car next Spring by the sounds of things
2.0 duratec engine & new chassis (no doubt stiffer and much improved)

this amounts to such a radical change for a car that has evolved in tiny trickles over teh years that you'd be silly IMO not to fully review your options before going for whats potentially and end of the line model and engine.

[jaker]

Hi Jackal,

I had heard that too, but the sales guy assured me that the k-series cars are staying and the new duratec car is gonna be a £35k (like the csr??) machine.

was that 'sales speak?'

cheers

[jackal]

yep, you could well be right i have no idea about the specifics

a bit of a gamble though if it does turn out to be a 28k 220bhp series 3 duratec powered rear IRS 300% stuffer chassis yet lighter etc....

[jaker]

yeah, you do have a point. You have just described my perfect car!!

[dino ferrana]

Unlikey to be £28k I would have said for the new car, I believe the race cars aren't far off that and the R400 race cars were always a lot cheaper than the road cars. The reason for this is the race cars lacks lights, seats, stack, carbon and quite a few other bits.

I believe the new car is unlikely to have a massively revised chassis a la CSR. The CSR project was very expensive for Caterham and was heavily invested on because of its worldwide appeal. I know someone close to the company and a S3 IRS car is very very unlikely with it being basically impossible to fit the CSR suspension into an S3 chassis.

But despite all the rumours that Caterham will go CSR or SV only I have it on good authority there are no plans to dump the narrow chassis.

The R300 is a great car universally recognised as a great Caterham by owners and magazines. It is IIRC one of the best selling Caterhams ever. Freestlye make a well engineered product but whatever people tell you selling it on will be much harder than a factory kit or fully built car.

All IMHO

[jackal]

"I believe the new car is unlikely to have a massively revised chassis a la CSR."


maybe IRS is one setp to far but do you honestly think that Caged will create something exactly the same as the existing chassis and put their name on it. Just on paper, with the quipment they have they could make something far far stiffer for the same weight or even less. I very much doubt it will just be a metric "arch chassis". With all due respect, the existing S3 chassis is not exactly difficult to improve upon.

[jaker]

interesting comments Dino and Jackal...

Jackal, your comment about the existing chassis not being hard to improve on, I understood that the Caterham chassis was still one of the best in that marketplace??

If not, who does it better in your opinions?