Caterham Seven 160 review: The Raspberry Pi of motoring When I took my seatbelt off, the Caterham 160 didn’t beep at me. I didn’t get electronically reprimanded when I got out and left the headlights on and I didn’t have any problems bluetoothing my phone to the radio because it doesn’t have Bluetooth. Or a radio. An interactive photo of the Caterham. Click on a spot and the …
was the car of my late teens I dreamed of wanting.
The westfields always had a bit more panache about them imho.
21k for a 660cc caterham is silly money though. If you want to do this sort of thing - get a bike engineer kit or buy one someone else has stuck together. You can pick one up for 8 or 9k.
stu
The advantage of the factory built small engined option though is that it's warrantied and approved; although I agree that if you're a bit more happy with it a as a second/third car, the power to weight (and revs to weight...) you can get from a 'Busa or 'Blade engined Caterham are greater than this, but then this isn't meant to be a screamer track-day weapon - it's an everyday car that can go on track without being too intimidating or unreliable.
I like it.
Did you seriously just use the word 'panache' to describe a Westfield...the ugly plastic-bodied clone of the actual genuine Lotus/Caterham 7?
I've heard it all now.
The 160 is lot of money for the power on offer but take a look at the residuals ...a genuine 7 has very little depreciation and actual cost of ownership is frequently lower than for any bodged together kit car.
The handling on the SEight is a bit iffy ( or used to be) due to the very heavy engine. Makes the steering a bit heavy as well.
And there's nothing wrong with the styling of the Westfield! (made one, loved it, only transport for well over a year)
And as for 'bodged together kit car", I suggest taking a look at some that have been made properly. Don't judge all kit cars by the worst examples.
The spacing is wrong. It looks like the actual VRM is S16 OCC, and moving the O to the left is an offence, with a £1000 penalty.
See http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2001/561/introduction/made for the whole thing and http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2001/561/schedule/3/made for the precise layout details.
From what I understand, those plate regs are usually used as a totting up thing - IE if someone is taking the piss and gets pulled for doing 90mph on an A-road and is arsey about it (as opposed to 'sorry officer, won't happen again' and let off with a warning) then they'll use the plates, a worn tyre, etc to throw the book at you.
I've never heard of anyone being pulled specifically for the plate unless it was genuinely hard to read (IE italic, etc) - even the 'german' plates that are popular with the VW lot - unless you're in a position to be in trouble anyway, like if you're with a load of mates in MacDonalds car park being a nuisance. On the motorway doing 75-80 generally behaving yourself?
Not really a problem.
Steven R
Everyone does it. It's acceptable defacto, and the regs are mainly there to prevent the defeat of ANPR.
Cleverly spaced numbers are OK with ANPR, italics and other fonts are not.
Hence, plod are pretty chilled about it.
Unless you're being a dick, in which case, one more for the charge sheet!
Car enthusiasts and boy racers are immune from modification related MOT failures. Exhaust systems, cat convertors and now number plates are all related to how much we pay for our road tax, yet monitored by poorly trained, poorly educated and biased testers. Testers who unlike on the continent, sole purpose is competing for business.
Being from down under, I had no idea that people modify their plates just to move a space. Our rego plates are still handed out sequentially but can easily be changed, and you can request any character combination in the standard format for a fee. If you pay enough, you can have any combination of letters and numbers that you like, up to the character limit (seven in most places, nine in some) and within the bounds of taste.
It's either Pistonheads, or one of those places that hate Pistonheads, like the Evo (care in the) Community forum, where 'powerfully built company director' is used to describe a certain kind of PH user - brogues, rugger shirt, chinos, unwarranted selfimportance knobber - who seem to flourish over there.
Troy queef last time, PH this time, blimey, it's like having someone who knows about cars reviewing cars!
How unusual for a tech site...!
Steven R/Beany
Sr,
I have a much loved mk2 vw scirocco which was quite capable of keeping up with and accelerating my E39 535i, the scirocco does 75 in 2nd gear...
There is a lot to be said for adding lightness and blueprinting an engine.
Btw the Scirocco is the only car i have owned that has ever appreciated in value.
The missus loves Caterhams, one can dream...
J.
There were a lot of kit-cars with the general Lotus 7 look, and of varying quality. Haynes even sold a book on making your own. But the mechanical style of cars has changed. There's not so many cars now with rear-wheel drive to use as donor vehicles. Though Wikipedia provides an impressive list.
I am not sure that a Caterham is quite like the Raspberry Pi. It's maybe a bit more like the FUZE. But they are certainly in the same territory.
The haynes book was called Build your own Sports Car by a guy called Ron Champion. The car is called the Locost, and have a thriving race series run by the 750 Motorclub.
If you can find the donor parts (Mk2 Escort, Cortina front hubs) they are pretty easy to make, although I haven't finished my road going one yet, even after 15 years, due to buying a racing one ready made and then having too many children.
...both had Caterhams.
My dad had a late 1980's Prisoner spec style racing green one. It was a gentleman racer with a uprated 1700CC Ford engine. Twin carbs and an exhaust that popped and crackled like crazy. You could hear that car coming into the village from about two miles away. He sold it about a year ago as it want getting the use it did.
My bother has a mid 90's standard spec Caterham with a 1600cc Ford engine. He still has it and uses it often in the summer.
They were the only two cars that the guys at the servicing garage in town would drive over specially to collect...funny that.
With Caterhams the general rule is simplest/basic is best. Big mega engines are a waste of time as the design is inherently flawed in its aerodynamics. Once you hit the 90-100mph range the power needed to go over that goes up exponentially.
What about using something like the Suzuki GSX1250 (Bandit) engine in one? It's certainly not a mega-powerful race engine at under 100bhp, but is an absolute torque-monster with around 81 lbf·ft (108nm) at just 3,750rpm. I was once lent a Bandit 1250 and it's a cracking powerplant for road use.
It might. It's just that owning and driving a Caterham is all about the raw essence of driving. It's like taking up a Tiger Moth rather than a Jetstream.
The less clutter and electronics the better. You only need an engine that goes up to 80-90mph anyway because with a Caterham whatever speed you are actually doing over 40mph, it feels 30mph faster than it really is.
Simple engines in the Caterham are great too if you like home servicing. Garages love working on them for that reason as they don't need to mess around.
Keep it simple.
I too thought simple engines were nice till I learned how the new ones worked. Carburettors can fuck right off into the dustbin of history as far as I'm concerned. You noticed how cars start in the morning and decent mpg these days? thats cos carbs have finally been ousted.
And in order for this story to be in thereg rather than 5th gear he should have got the raspberry pi to run the fuel injection and the sparks :)
"....your roads are too straight and wide." The US has a much lower population density than the UK, a lot more countryside, and even real mountains with suitably snaking mountain roads. You might have known this if you had actually been to the States.
Hi guys,
Nice surprise to see an analogue article vs. fully digital, from another Caterham owner. We've had ours more than 12 years and it's been (literally) all over Europe and the world (USA and Oz). Never missed a beat, and with the R500 engine you can look for 0-60 times nearer 3.2 sec. We've only made 3 mods in all the years -- intercom that plugs into music, 12v outlet and a Rallye computer.
We've done most all the interesting islands in Europe, been to Rome a few times, done the major passes in Austrla, Switzerland (including the scary morning we foolishly overtook a snowplow) and gone across the US's Rocky Mountains and the Golden Gate Bridge.
Other than that, it's the most fun you can have in a car with your clothes on! Or as another friend says, In Space no one can hear you scream, in a Se7en, no one can smell your bottom :):)
"When I took my seatbelt off, the Caterham 160 didn’t beep at me. I didn’t get electronically reprimanded when I got out and left the headlights on "
You just sold it to me.
Cars should *never* beep at you except possibly to warn that you are about to reverse into something solid. I don't want it to turn the wipers on for me, nor the headlights, nor apply the parking brake. I can do all of those thing just fine for myself, thanks. Better, in fact. I don't even want self-cancelling indicators. I can do that better than the car too. I'm the driver, godammit!
-A.
Just bought my first American car (not my fault)
It locks all the doors when you go above 10mph and they stay locked even when you stop and turn the engine off. The drivers door opens but you have to press a button to release the passengers, I keep walking off to see my wife fuming at being kept prisoner.
And for some reason I don't understand, the remote unlock doesn't do the driver's door - you have to use the key to get in.
If I wasn't a programmer I would RTFM and find out how to stop it.
Unless the driver has had SOME training and knows how to handle non-abs brakes, in which case the car will stop even quicker. (seriously, abs still lets the wheels lock up slightly, causing the characteristic interrupted brake mark. A skilled driver can apply JUST a bit less brake pressure than locking up the wheels en keep the tire rolling. This creates more brake force than the interrupted skid of ABS)
ABS is better for MOST drivers and in MOST situations, but it's not the IDEAL solution
Not sure that's true anymore. It certainly was when ABS first came out, but modern ABS systems don't let the wheels lock up. The reluctor rings provide sufficient speed information to let the system modulate the brake pressure up to 50 times a second as a wheel speed drops, and independently for each wheel, before any wheel starts to skid.
I doubt very much whether a human driver, no matter how skilled can
a) detect a skid in a few milliseconds
b) pump the brake pedal 50 times a second
c) provide different brake pressures to each wheel
All cars are born with the steering wheel on the left - even those built in Britain. Cars destined for Britain must be taken to a secret monastery in the Himalayas where saffron robbed monks change the wheel over for right hand drive. This is an expensive process.
This is why even cars built in Britain for foreigners are cheaper to buy on the continent than at home.
It's an odd one. I remember wanting to buy a Ford Puma when all the car importing stuff was going on with Carbusters etc. at the turn of the century.
The local Ford Dealer wanted £16000 for a Puma.
I went to Carbusters and they asked just £12000 for a UK 1.7 spec Puma.
Now that £12000 car had the Ford factory cut, the Ford dealer in Duisburg cut, the UK importers cut and also Carbusters take too plus VAT etc. and still came in £4000 cheaper.
"This is a car where paint is an optional extra and the rawness is exhilarating."
Mine, 20 odd years old, free from road duty, actually economical (1600 Ford Engine) is a delight. Having said that I do almost as many mile per year on a bicycle as I do on with the Caterham - but both are very enjoyable.
Are the recipe for fun. Also direct steering and stiff suspension. All of which is found in Frazer Nash or HRG. Both prove the value of utter simplicity and solid axles
If this simple car was fun, beg borrow or steal a drive in a mid 30s Frazer, and experience immediacy of response we have all forgotten about.
Heh. I had the delight of watching a Chain Gang Frazer Nash at a filling station recently. It was occupied by two rather large people, with a total width about 50% greater than the car, and a lot of luggage in there with them. The FN has no doors, and the gent driving it had a stiff leg.
His reentry process involved removing everything from his seat and piling it on his missus, removing the steering wheel and placing it on the bonnet, clambering (stiff-legged) onto the seat, after removing the external handbrake from his trouser leg, and dropping into the cockpit. His missus then returned all his goodies, which took some time to redistribute, and then he reached for the steering wheel... which was out of reach.
Return goodies to missus, stand on seat again, lean over to get steering wheel, be dragged back to vertical by missus, collapse into cockpit this time clutching steering wheel, fit steering wheel, collect goodies, start engine, look around trying to remember where he left the handbrake, and finally, ten minutes after he started, pull the car away.
Only to park twenty yards away and engage in further gymnastics for some reason I was unable to ascertain...
Character, that's what these old cars bring.
(My choice of steed: a kit car weighing 800g, with a fiat coupe 20v turbo lump in replacing a 1300 ford engine. It moves quite quickly.)
Now that's an impressive power to weight ratio - but you must have had to sacrifice a degree of structural rigidity/material to get it quite so light..?
(Finest driving experience - Alpine A110 1600s, 160bhp, no idea what it weighed, but it flew. Literally, when the throttles got jammed while practising for a sprint event; I suspect it will hold the all time altitude record for Curborough sprint circuit. Favourite - 1932 Aston New International. Makes me smile even thinking about it; not quite so "direct" as an FN, and notoriously underpowered, but rewarding in a way that no modern car can even approach)
Great article. The AZ-1 mention appreciated - I've always wanted one.
The 160 - a super car. The last time I really enjoyed driving was in my brother's Caterham - its also the only car I've ever spun.
There aren't many cars I have taken out to drive, just for the fun of it. The Caterham being one, my 10in mini being the other.
The key is lightness. I really struggled to buy a car weighing under a tonne which has any fun factor at all. The Caterham is to expensive BUT, lightness brings dynamic response and driver satisfaction.
So, no that I'm ready to get a new car, what can I buy that's under a tonne, exciting for less than 15k?
"So, no that I'm ready to get a new car, what can I buy that's under a tonne, exciting for less than 15k?"
Go and look at a Renault Club Sport, not the current but the one just gone - the final one with hydraulic power steering
1050 kilos with me and half a tank of gas. Weighed at my local Porsche/MOT garage.
Anything with electric power steering might be 'economical' but no feeling. Discussions with a steering engineer working on cars you might buy confirmed this.
Having owned every hot hatch from XR3 (note - no I) onwards I will say this was the best mix of abilities and speed.
Often used to head of to mid Wales and throw it around the moorland roads, using a couple of tanks of gas in the process, never failed to excite and always a better car than me!!
And yet we took it across Europe on tours of France and Spain, in relative comfort,
Well, Jeremy Clarkson used to own a bog-standard Classic Seven with the 1.4 K-series, and he wasn't exactly small then. If width rather than height is the issue there are wider cockpit models and competitors, the Westfield actually being the better wide-cockpit option (presumably because of the Northern deep-fried Mars bar diet).
There is a boot but it’s tiny and most of the time its half full of rolled-up roof. I did take it shopping but could only buy half what I would normally and even then I had to leave the roof at home.
On my 20 year old Caterham, the roof rarely travels - it really is awful and getting into the 7 with the roof on is a contortionists wet dream. Instead I rely on a flat cover which unzips around the driver, and travelling at more than 30mph which takes most of the rain over the top. That and a prett waterproof cabin. Insurance is negligible as I don't expect to do more than 5k a year (a good year). With a 1600 ford engine, I get 45mpg If pushing it, and 55 in normal use. A blast - inexpensive to buy, run and maintain. It also gets grins all round.
Well you can now get Elise S1s for around the 6 to 8 grand mark these days.
Not quite as raw as a 7 but still puts a smile on your face.
I'm planning on building a 7 with my son for his first car based around a really low powered engine doner car to keep his insurance as low as possible. He'll learn how to maintain it in the process as well.
I had a Caterham Super 7 many years ago - it was so much fun to drive but about as practical as a speed boat. I wanted to buy it as a kit (or "component form" as they advertised then) but, during my 12 months on the waiting list, the price went up by 20% and the wait by 50% so I ended up getting a built-and-sold-back model.
There was nothing on that car that wasn't necessary and it was simple to maintain. The indicator switch was a toggle switch on the dash that you had to remember to cancel. The handbrake was mounted transversely above the top of your passenger's legs (oops! sorry love). The gear leaver was the size of an Atari joystick and sat on top of the transmission tunnel that ran along your side and separated you from the passenger. There was enough heat from that for the winter months.
People were always interested in the car and would ask questions such as "Aren't you worried you might get mugged by a gang of midgets at the lights?"
After driving this car every day I got back into my battered old MK3 Escort and it felt like I was driving a bus. The steering wheel seemed massive and it felt like the car was leaning 45° when I went around roundabouts.
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