'So that's where I get in, is it?...'
Always travel with your headlights on, don't let the fuel gauge run into the red, and pop the hood over a household radiator before you put it on in cold weather. Just some of the first pieces of advice that you'll hear when you go to pick up your brand-new Caterham Seven.
As you may have guessed from that introduction, my Caterham Seven Academy car is finally snugly ensconced in the PH office car park. Although the 'official' handover happened at the PistonHeads show a couple of weeks ago, I hadn't been able to take the car out on the road, as it's been awaiting registration. (P15 COM has yet to become the official plate for it).
But late last week we had word that the car was ready, so we hopped into the PH Jag XFR and crawled around the M25 to Caterham's sales office in, er, Caterham to pick it up.
That's where the strange advice started. You see, a Caterham isn't quite like a normal car - there are quirks and tricks to its operation that need to be explained to a new owner before they whizz off in their pride and joy. This is not the sort of car the salesman can simply hand you the keys to and wave you off.
So Caterham marketing chap James Drake spent a good 45 minutes showing myself and Chris around the car, and giving us the official introduction to Seven ownership.
'The round things steers the car'
Running with dipped-beam headlights is really an obvious point when you think about it - such a small car, especially painted in black, is pretty easy to miss in murky winter driving conditions. Equally a car with a 30-litre fuel tank is never going to be generous when it comes to the bottom end of the fuel gauge, but the hood on the domestic radiator is an altogether more intriguing piece of advice.
Turns out that the vinyl, in cold weather, is loosened up considerably when you warm it, so it saves pinched fingers and swearing when you popper it on to the car. The hood also tightens up beautifully as it cools down, minimising that 'pram' look you can get on roofed Sevens.
Apart from that, some of the weirder points of the handover are the advice to leave the bonnet on the floor rather than to stand it up on end which is the more obvious option (chances are you'll knock it over), and how to 'fit' the door into the roof lining to minimise the entry of water during wet weather. (How many other cars require you to understand that point?)
Most peculiar, however, was the quick tutorial on how to get in with the roof up (surprisingly tricky with the door aperture reduced by three inches courtesy of our Academy car's full roll cage). Seems the technique for a chap of my less-than-agile frame is to put your left foot in, then sort of indecorously dive head first into the car, before finally squeezing the right leg in through the door. After they'd picked themselves up off the floor and managed to stop laughing, James and Chris politely suggested I might need to practise that bit somewhere quiet.
Still, all these things are part of the fun of Caterham ownership. Next up is a run up to Demon Tweeks in Wrexham to get some of my racing clobber, a 400-mile round trip. Should be fun!
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