New vs. old Caterham – which is best? | Thank Frankel it’s Friday

But then a call. It was Caterham who, so far as I’m aware, had no idea I now own a car it made 25 years ago. What they do know is that I’d recently spent some time in its brand new 1.6-litre but retro-themed Super Seven with its snorting Jenvey throttle bodies, partly because I wrote about it in quite a few different places, but largely because it had been them who’d leant it to me. But it had been a while, too long in their view, since I last had any wheel time in a car from the other end of it range. The more, er, insane end. Would I therefore care to spend a few days in a 620S, a car so called because that’s meant to indicate its power to weight ratio, which if true exceeds that of a Bugatti Veyron…?

Normally I’d have had the man’s arm off at the shoulder before he’d finished the sentence, but now in my new circumstances I was suddenly not at all sure. A week in a 620S sounded fun, but would it not precipitate a lifetime of disappointment in the car it left behind with considerably less than half the power? Then again, I could hardly rule out ever driving a fast Caterham on such flimsy and unprofessional grounds, so not without some trepidation I accepted the offer.

I certainly didn’t like the way it looks as much as my car. The car I drove had a wide body and little piggy lights mounted far further forward than on my car. It rather spoils its face, at least to a traditionalist like me. But the quality of the thing, the interior in particular, is a world ahead of mine, though you can no longer reach every important switch without taking your hands off the wheel. What hasn’t changed is that wonderful driving position, so low, so straight, so snug. There really is nothing else like it.

Still, I dreaded firing it up and punting it down the road because it would spoil doing the same in my car forever after. But there was little choice. So I pressed the button and heard and felt a rather strong, more modern Ford engine, this one with 2.0-litres, a supercharger and 314PS (231kW), grumble into life. And I was privately pleased to note that for all its power and sophistication, it sounds nothing like as good as my old carb-fed lump.

But to drive? Oh my goodness. I think what people fail to appreciate about a really good modern Seven is how, in its own back to basics way, it’s actually quite a sophisticated car. Here is a car that would probably give a McLaren F1 a run for its money off the line, yet its urge is not delivered with all the subtlety of a baseball bat to the back of the cranium. It builds. You really can drive this car around at 2,500rpm, enjoying its remarkably good ride, smelling the country air and just savouring the immediacy of its steering and the feel of the road fed to backside through the chassis. It will only do the other thing if you ask it to. And then it is and in every way, completely potty. A ripping, howling, shrieking, bellowing beast of a machine.

Yet here’s the strange thing. It hasn’t spoiled my car at all. I prefer the way it looks and sounds and while mine has less grip and lacks a limited-slip differential so doesn’t slide like the modern car, its limits are far more accessible. And while it doesn’t have an axe-wielding maniac act up its sleeve it’s still not slow and what it lacks in pure pace it recovers at least to some extent in sheer charm.

Of course the 620S is the better car – and by a distance – but more important to me is the fact these cars still exist. I’ve been driving Caterhams for well over 30 years now and they seem as special today as they ever have. They feel as different to run of the mill cars as ever and make me smile as much today as they did when I first started doing this job in the 1980s. A old one, a new one, a fast one, a slow one: it really doesn’t matter. It’s a Caterham and I’ve yet to drive one I didn’t like. May they live forever.