Life in Northumberland with a Thai wife, two cats, a Caterham 7, and cancer
Caterham 7
In my early teens I developed an obsession with cars, Specifically, racing cars. As soon as I passed my driving test aged 17, I would borrow my father’s car and head off to race meetings all over the country.
Of course I wanted my own car. And not just any car, I wanted a racing car for the road, I wanted a Lotus 7.
Shortly after my 21st birthday, I bought one.
The story behind this lucky acquisition and my subsequent car building and competition adventures are recorded here,
(warning: describes the death of more than one relative in positive terms, read at your own risk).
Shortly before my 23rd birthday, I sold the 7 due to lack of funds. But it lived on in my heart. There were other cars. A selection of MGs. A Ford Anglia with a Cosworth engine which wasn’t safe to drive on the road. A clubmans race car that wasn’t safe to drive on a track. But none of these matched the joy of my Lotus 7. I continued to pine for one.
From 1998 onwards I was living in Thailand where the ideal means of transport is an air-conditioned truck. You need air conditioning because it is always horrifically hot, and you need a truck because driving standards are appalling; such that you will inevitably be involved in an accident, so having as much metal as possible between you and the impact point is a good idea.
As I approached 70, it seemed unlikely that my motoring passion would be fulfilled.
But shortly before my 77th birthday (an appropriate age I think), I bought a Seven.
The following posts describe my Caterham 7 acquisition and ownership.
Before launching into my ownership experiences, it might be useful to briefly explain the history of the Seven.
Colin Chapman started by building competition cars for himself. When these were successful, he was requested to build some copies and in 1952 he set up Lotus Engineering to produce the Lotus Mark 4. The Mark 5 never happened, but the Mark 6 was a (comparatively) huge success, selling 110 cars between 1952 and 1955.
The Mark 7 was intended to be a Formula 2 car, but design stalled while Chapman launched a series of other racing cars, including the very successful Lotus 11.
Income from selling racing cars was both limited and seasonal, and people were still asking for the Lotus 6, so Chapman reluctantly updated the design and the Seven was born in 1957, road legal but mainly intended for racing. An improved version, the S2, arrived in 1960, with the S3 following in 1968.
With production increasingly focused on more refined cars, Chapman was all set to discontinue production of the Lotus 7; but one of their distributors, Caterham Cars, stepped in and bought the manufacturing rights in 1973. The Caterham 7 was born.
More than forty years on and Caterham have produced more than 22,000 Sevens and have an aspiration to increase production to 750 cars a year in their new factory.
Of course such success could only be achieved by upgrading and improving the car to modern standards? Listed below are the design changes I noticed comparing my 1969 S3 Lotus 7 to a 2026 S3 Caterham 7:
The handbrake is in a different position
A testament to the genius of Chapman and the common sense of Caterham. If it works don’t try and fix it.
I have a Caterham banner in my garage (yes, I am sad), bearing the slogan “Designed for racing, built for living”. Is it?
Undoubtedly designed for racing. With a couple of safety upgrades, you can race your Seven in a variety of championships, then drive it home afterwards if you haven’t stuffed it into a wall.
Built for living? Not if you consider that living with your car involves being provided with any degree of comfort or convenience. Things it doesn’t have that you might expect in a new car: Power steering Anti-lock brakes Power assisted brakes Self-cancelling indicators Sound proofing
But it’s the absence of all these “features” that makes the 7 such an enduring, exciting (and noisy)car.
For balance, I should list the things it does have which you might reasonably expect in a car: Heater Seats Doors
The heater is very handy in winter. In summer you can turn it off, but that doesn’t stop a wall of heat seeping through from the engine compartment and melting your legs.
The seats are actually pieces of wood with some foam and leather on top; but surprisingly comfortable.
The doors are flaps with plastic windows. You can remove them and have roadkill thrown up by the front wheels all over your right arm and, if you are really lucky, your face.
So, a car that has been in production for (nearly) seventy years, with a design that last changed (nearly) sixty years ago; and still rated as one of the best driver’s cars. Of course I wanted one.
In 2017 I had been living in Thailand for almost twenty years and it seemed a good idea to return to the mother country for a holiday, to visit my son and daughter in law and to play at being tourists.
My son had spent his formative years being exposed to sports and racing cars, was aware of my 7 fixation and was agreeable to the idea of renting one for a few days. So we did.
We presented ourselves at the Caterham headquarters where I was told I was almost too old to hire one (thanks), but we were given the keys and I drove it to my son’s house.
Memories came flooding back. The long bonnet, the headlights, the absence of any driving aids or comfort, the fucking awful noise. Bliss.
I only had a day in it before flying out. I remember getting up at 0530, whizzing down country lanes and laughing like a fool. I remember taking my wife out for a drive and she screamed; but not in a good way. I loved it; but knew I could never own one in Thailand, nor could I ever rent one again due to my age.
I flew back to Thailand, a little sad, a little satisfied.
You can buy a Seven for racing via the Seven Academy, race it for a season; take all the stickers off and sell it as a road car.
Some don’t want to race, but do like to take them to a track a few times a year and thrash them till some component gets too hot or falls off, or both.
Some just want to whizz around country roads and experience the joy of real motoring, with bees bouncing off their forehead.
And some just want to cruise about with friends and make their cars look cute (hello, Japanese Seven owners).
I am in the whizzing about category.
There was no doubt my new machine whizzed. It whizzed quicker than anything I had driven before. Immediate, brutal, and frankly more than is sensible on the Northumberland B roads I normally frequent. Of course I could just drive slower, but what’s the point in that?
Then there was the noise. The howl from the throttle bodies was invigorating, the racket from the differential, less so.
All Caterhams are noisy. The exhaust burbles, right next to your right ear. The wind howls. Various components loosen themselves as you clatter along the road. The gearbox clonks, the clutch whines. The sonic possibilities are endless. Turn 7 have a useful video on the subject.
Perhaps most notorious is the noise from the differential. In most cars, the diff is a long way away from your ears and masked by sound deadening. In a 7 it’s just behind your bum and masked by nothing. If it is noisy you are going to hear it, and it is often noisy.
It is not really surprising; Sevens have powerful engines and fat tyres, diffs don’t like this combination, noise ensues. But even new Caterhams can be noisy. It is as if Caterham obtained a batch of new diffs, stripped them all down, threw all the bits into a cupboard and then rebuilt the diffs based on randomly selected components.
Whatever the reason, my diff clicked and howled. My wife hated it, I found it distracted from all the normal Seven noises and I also wondered what it would cost if it stopped clicking and howling and exploded.
I also didn’t like the chassis. Caterham sell two sizes, the original S3 size chassis and a wider one known as the SV especially for the those of a wider girth (aka fat fuckers). I am not wide, but I thought a wider chassis would make it more acceptable for my wife, providing more space for the assorted crap she likes to take in the car with her. It didn’t help, she hated the noise, the exposure to the elements, the performance (which I was immediately banned from using in her presence). I didn’t like it because I missed the snug feeling of being a traditional chassis.
Parked next to a Series 2 Seven. Someone has been eating too many chips.
Ownership lasted six weeks during which time I enjoyed 1,500 miles of crazy, chaotic motoring. If I had wanted a track day car, it would have been perfect. If I only wanted it for an occasional blast (this one had averaged 600 miles a year before I bought it), it would have been acceptable. But that’s not what I wanted. I wanted a car I could drive all the time; fast runs on empty roads, cruises at sunset, emergency shopping trips to Tesco. Basically, any excuse to be in it, and not always at speeds that indicated that a trip to the undergrowth was imminent.
So I contacted Callum and told him I wanted to change it. He was not surprised; apparently owners frequently have to experience owning a Caterham before deciding that is not the version they need.
I traded it in. Bye.
“I gave you everything you ever wanted, it wasn’t what you wanted” – One- U2 (I know, pretentious band, but it’s a good quote).
Colin is a 2013 Roadsport 125. Colin is green with a yellow stripe, as were the Lotus F1 cars of the 1960s, before they were painted like a cigarette packet. Colin has a standard S3 chassis and only makes ordinary noises. I like Colin.
I handed back the yellow peril (which was immediately snapped up by someone attracted by the sound and fury), and started enjoying my new toy.
With 125 bhp it has less power, but it’s sufficient to put a smile on my face. You can hear the diff; but not in a impending doom sort of way, There’s no fancy carbon, no extra bits, just a basic Seven as made by the original Colin all those years ago.
I intend keeping it until I can no longer insert myself into it, or extract myself from it.
Returning from a pleasant blast across the North Pennines, I am, as always, enjoying being in my Seven. The fresh air, the wind in my hair, the bird shit spattered across my face…What! It was a targeted assault, with the initial volley laid across the centre of my bonnet.
This was then followed by the main assault on my windscreen:
With fallout impacting my face and hair, and with liberal splattering over the seats.
I failed to identify the culprit, but it had clearly not enjoyed its previous meal.
