Two Days in SevenA weekend with a Caterham Seven |
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Head due south from central London and you will find, in the unassuming suburbs and countryside of east Surrey, a place where they will sell you a different sort of motor car. In an unpretentious village, tucked away discretely between a petrol station and a public car park, lies a vestige of British motoring tradition. The place is Caterham and for the best part of 25 years Caterham Cars Ltd. have been the owners of the design that used to be called the Lotus Seven, a classic dating all the way back to antediluvian the days of Eisenhower, Khrushchev and Macmillan. I had wanted to own one of these silly machines since I had first set eyes on one, more years ago than I can remember and well before I could see over a steering wheel. Now, cash in hand and trepidation in heart, I had decided to take one of the little monsters away for a weekend. I hadn't given a single thought to where I might go because I didn't really care. You don't drive a Caterham to go somewhere, you drive a Caterham to drive a Caterham. "Ever been in one of these before?" The man from Caterham begins to runs through the controls matter-of-factly as I stand looking down in sympathy at the blue K-Series Super Seven that would have to put up with this novice for the next 48 hours.
Anyone looking for convenience in a Caterham cockpit will find only disappointment. It was evidently designed in an era when all switches were either on or off - none of your multi- position, variable-speed dials and stalks. You get a switch to turn your headlights on, another to turn them to main beam and, in a quaint concession to convenience, a third self-returning switch to flash your headlights. Indicators too are operated by a switch on the dashboard, and have to be turned off manually. After running through the heater controls, the man from Caterham then touches on that most delicate of subjects: how to put up the roof. Explaining to someone how to raise the roof in a Caterham is a bit like explaining how to give their grandmother the kiss of life: everyone agrees that you ought to know, just in case, but no-one wants to even think about doing it. He explains unconvincingly that it will take me only a couple of minutes should I get caught in a shower but stops short of a full demonstration. I am hardly paying attention anyway. He throws me the keys and disappears. I pull open the flimsy plastic door and, legs stretched out straight in front of me, slot myself into the drivers seat. The first big surprise is the comfort. There was time when Caterhams came with seats that looked (and no doubt felt) like upholstered park benches. But the seats in my car not only have headrests, they are comfortable too: figure- hugging without being restrictive, firm without causing physical pain. I feel at home, strangely so considering this car was born a decade before me. The first big disappointment is that my feet are clearly too big. (I dare not entertain the thought that the pedals might be too close together; this car was, after all, designed by Colin Chapman.) Co-ordinating the clutch and brake will be tricky, both feet colliding with each other as they move. Pressing the brake hard necessarily involves pressing the accelerator at the same time, and - most worrying of all - my right foot coming off the accelerator is trapped by the back of the brake pedal. I tell myself that I will get used to it but, if the truth be told, it was to give me trouble all weekend.
Gripping the leather of the marvellous Momo steering wheel and hooking my thumbs over its two horizontal spokes, I look down at the dashboard. From where I sit, the wheel neatly obscures the rev counter between 2,000 and 5,000 rpm, and the speedo above 100 mph. An ergonomic flaw? Surely not. I rationalise the arrangement by arguing to myself that the interesting bit of the rev counter (5,000 - 8,000, but no explicit red line to tell me how far I can go) is comfortably in view, and that if I ever get above 100 mph I will be better off looking at the road than the speedo. I fumble with the ignition key, trying to get it into a slot that is awkwardly hidden beneath the dashboard, and then proceed to take skin off my hands as I turn it. The 1.6 litre, 16-valve Rover engine springs to life instantly with a sublime, menacing rumble. If there is anything at all perfect about this car it is the engine note. Caterham claims that this noise under the bonnet can a push the little Seven from standstill to 60 mph in a shade under 7s. I salivate. With a clunk into first gear and a whine of the clutch I am, at last, loose on the roads. The first thing I notice is how much of the car is in front and how little is behind. The long bonnet makes pulling out of junctions tricky and weaving amongst traffic easy to misjudge. That Ford Escort looming large in my rear-view mirror is not drawing menacingly close, its just that there's nothing save a spare tyre and a vestigial boot between me and its front grill. The second thing I notice is that my indicator has been on since I turned right at the first T-junction a mile back. It's a good job that this car has no radio, I need to concentrate to drive it. The overwhelming feeling as I sit in the cockpit is one of being watched. Not by other people - the experience of driving a Caterham is too other-worldly to take much notice of gawking pedestrians, waving kids and camera-happy tourists. No, the one doing the watching is the car itself, those boggle-eyed headlights staring back at you, reflecting all that they see in their burnished chrome finish.
The Caterham's senses extend from sight to touch. It feels its way over every rut and bump, transmitting them all to the occupants through the steering wheel and the seats of their pants. The steering redefines the meaning of the word "direct". It jiggles and snaps in my hands as the car rides over bumps the size of gnats' droppings. I never need more than a quarter turn either way to navigate even the tightest corners. The closest I have come to this before was at the wheel of a Formula Ford. On the motorway at speed I am tense and the car feels nervous. I wonder if a careless twitch or unanticipated lump in the road will send me skipping underneath the lorry in the next lane. But on smaller winding roads everything feels just right. I push down my right foot (taking care not to press the brake pedal at the same time) and the engine's growl grows deeper and louder. The car lurches forward. It wants to run faster and is laughing at my attempts to see how quickly it can go. The gear change, close and quick, is a delight, save for an awkward reverse that needs the strength of ten men to engage. With the pedals so close-set, heel-and-toeing is more straightforward than in any car I've driven. The brakes, to be frank, are a disappointment. I expected such a light car to be able to scrub of speed at a moment's notice but it doesn't feel that way to me and early braking for corners is the order of the day. Once into the corner, though, a broad grin starts to settle on my face. With a tweak of the wheel the Caterham glides through bends without a hint of drama and no perceptible roll, just rock-steady assurance. The low-slung position that puts me at such a disadvantage - and into everyone's exhaust fumes - in traffic suddenly starts to feel right when I hit a corner on the open road. My body pressing against the cockpit sides reminds me that the natural tendency is for things to go straight on, but the Caterham just flies in whichever direction it's pointed. Hurtling along country lanes, I find the straight bits fun only because I'm thinking, waiting, salivating for the next corner. Sure, there are inconveniences. My car's handbrake refuses to hold the car on any road than isn't billiard-table flat. (Mentioning this to Caterham on my return, I'm told its a standard feature on all their models.) The cockpit is narrow if you have a passenger; Kyoko, my wife, complained of my elbow bashing her. Worse, she touched the exhaust pipe with her leg when climbing out of the passenger's side and got badly burned. The wonderful feeling of wind in our hair transforms above 80 mph to a serious concern that we'll have any hair left in which to feel any wind ever again. With the doors off its even worse and we are glad to have our seat belts on lest we should blow away completely. There's the constant (unspoken) worry of rain. And finally there's that low, low position which leaves us breathing everyone else's left over carbon monoxide, makes me certified blind at roundabouts, and has me wondering aloud whether or not bus drivers can see us at all. But get out into a bit of countryside (Oxfordshire was our choice) with winding lanes and the sun flickering on and off through the trees, and you begin to understand what it is to drive - I mean really drive - a car. And somehow, from behind the wheel of a Caterham, many things in life becomes so much more pleasant. It is as if my simple joy in driving it rubs off on everyone we meet. Schoolgirls in Eton chant "Nice car, nice car, nice car" as we rumble past. Even a staid London traffic warden, who has pointed out that I am committing an offence by parking my vehicle at a broken meter, can't help adding "And a very nice vehicle it is too". After only two days the Caterham has become the type of friend that, through shear weight of character, seems to produce incident and fun wherever we go together.
As I tootle back to Caterham through the thick London traffic, I'm tired. My face is sunburnt and feels grimy. My hair has an interesting new parting, created by the vortices that whip off the top of the windscreen. The Caterham has been like a wild but prodigious child. Learning to live with it has been exhausting but ultimately rewarding. As I hand over the keys, the man from Caterham asks what I think. I just smile. What I think is that the people at his firm are all barking mad to make cars like this - and that I'm even madder to want one. And I do want one. Badly. But it's time to return to civilian life. I jump into the Citroen ZX that brought me to Caterham two days ago. Turning on the radio, I pull out and point towards London. As I squeeze the accelerator it strikes me. How quiet modern cars are. How convenient, how safe. And how dull. Timo Hannay, Summer 1996 Caterhams can be hired and bought from Caterham Cars Ltd., Caterham, England, CR3 5UG. Tel+44-1883-346666. Rental costs start at 94.00 pounds a day. Kit prices start at 8,600 pounds. A K- Series similar to the one described in this article would cost around 17,850 pounds fully built. A fully built Caterham Vauxhall Super Seven with 165bhp and capable of 0-60mph in 4.8s will set you back 22,195 pounds, so try no to wrap it around the first lamppost. |
