Thank Frankel it’s Friday: The Caterham 21 could have been a great

But that’s not what this is about. Wandering around the car park, I soon realised that there were some cars here that, for one reason or another, were genuinely exceptional. There was a right-hand-drive, manual Ferrari 412i, for example. How many of those survive? An Alfa Romeo Rio too and a perfect Fiat 132 just like the one my dad had, with its fizzy 2.0-litre twin-cam motor.

Even so, nothing quite caught my eye like the Caterham 21, and for many reasons. The car was actually styled by a one-time work colleague and friend of mine, one Iain Robertson whose son Charlie is these days making a good name for himself in sports car racing. Back then Iain was the news editor of Autocar and I was its road test editor. But he was also a gifted artist and if you have any early 1990s copies of the mag, look at the renderings of future cars on the news pages and almost all will bear his autograph.

But Iain was much more than a car sketcher – he’d had a hand in the shape of the gorgeous second generation TVR Griffith and the Caterham 21 was his work alone. And I thought he did an excellent job of reskinning the Caterham Seven and bringing its look up to date. A svelte, sweeping body, offering a somewhat more practical interior, some boot space and not entirely inelegant way in and out thanks to innovative devices called doors.

I only drove one once, but it was a drive to remember. This was the first prototype, clothed in polished aluminium panels, not glass fibre like the 48 production cars. Under its bonnet lay not the 1.6 and 1.8-litre K-series Rover engines that would be in cars sold to the public, but an insane 2.0-litre Vauxhall ‘red top’ engine tuned to near-BTCC specification. It had also had no suspension development at all when I drove it.

And yet even on such slender evidence, the car clearly had potential. Yes, it was 100kg heavier than a Seven, but 660kg is still nothing, especially considering it meant you could actually pack your bags and go somewhere in it. Modification to the chassis almost meant it was at least 50 per cent stiffer structurally than the Seven of the day and that really showed too. I can remember getting very excited about it and explaining to one and all why it was not a cut price TVR, but a unique entity worthy of consideration on its own merits.

Of course the cars I failed to consider were those that did for it. And neither was a TVR. At one end came the Lotus Elise which was not only one of the greatest handling cars of all time but was also, well, a Lotus. And for those who just wanted something British, quite fun but not too adventurous, there was the really quite good new MGF to consider too.

Both of which served to remove the rug from under the 21’s feet, even before it had time to find its footing. Which was a shame. I think that had the world not gone crazy for two other British sports cars from rather better known and lavishly resourced companies, the 21 could have found a small but respectable audience for itself over a number of years. Still I’m glad there are still a few about and that one, at least, is still being used.