| Much has been said about `aspirational' cars. Vehicles we aspire to own.
There's many a refrigerator door and office wall adorned with photographs of the car we would buy when we, 'win Lotto.'
For many years I recall going to my mate Daryl Wilson's house and inevitably picking up his 1/18th scale model of a Caterham Super Seven. His son, Matthew gave him the model more years ago then Daryl cares to remember. The gift came as result of Daryl's life-long fascination with the Lotus marque.
For more years than Daryl also cares to remember he also procrastinated about acting on his dream. About four years back he decided the time for action had come and found a Super Seven to test drive.
It was a disaster. At almost 6 foot tall in the old money, he barely fitted into his dream car and his knees hit the underside of the dash. For a while it looked like the only Super Seven he would own would by the scale model sitting atop the TV entertainment unit. Then, after some research, he found the British firm, Caterham, that acquired the licence and tooling to build Super Sevens, had made one important adjustment to the car in the early 1990s.
They deepened the foot well which had been designed by Lotus founder, Colin Chapman, who was 5ft 6in. tall, and designed the car for his build. Daryl was back in the hunt.
He found a 1998 Caterham Super Seven in Sydney and after two visits to the Harbour city, put in an offer, which was accepted, and found himself the proud owner of a low-kilometre Super Seven he could fit into comfortably. I joined Daryl for a Sunday morning ride in March 2009 when we decided to visit a car display put on by the Monaro Club of Queensland. For a car design that is now more than 50 years old it is simply remarkable.
The external appearance of the tiny Seven has barely changed from Chapman's design and is still a head turner. It handles like it is on rails. Yet, the agricultural side of the car is gone. Caterham have retained the classic shape, but the underpinnings are now new technology. Caterham Cars only produce the Seven , a direct evolution of the Series Three Lotus Seven, designed by Chapman and launched in 1968. Chapman launched the Series One , Lotus Seven in 1957.
It was an immediate hit. Series Two, Three and Four followed in 1960, 1968 and 1970. But, it was the Series Three that was the top seller and favourite of enthusiasts.Caterham Cars were a major Lotus Seven dealer in the 1960s and it's founder Graham Nearn, purchased the rights to continue manufacture the Seven design from Chapman in 1973, when Lotus announced its decision to discontinue the model. But Caterham built the current (then) model the Series Four, but this proved unpopular, so they switched back to the Series Three in 1974. It was a critical, and correct, decision.
Today, the Lotus Seven/Caterham Seven is regarded by many enthusiasts as one of the world's great sports cars. Followers of Jeremy Clarkson's Top Gear will have seen the famous `board' that has a Caterham R500 in the top five fastest cars around the airport tarmac track used in that program, just .8 of a second off the leader's pace.
It has the performance of cars that cost 10 times as much and was faster than luminaries including Bugatti Veyron, Pagani Zonda F, Maserati MC12, Lamborghini Gallardo and Porsche 911 GT2.
Daryl's car is powered by a 1.6 litre Rover K-Series engine with Supersport conversion. This basic engine is also found in the MG-F. Power is run through a five speed gearbox, courtesy of Ford Sierra. The car's 0-100 kmh time is far from slow, at 5.9 seconds. Daryl is a member of the very active Lotus Club Queensland which has more than 70 members and has been going for more than 25 years. |
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