Why I’ve bought a Caterham | Thank Frankel it’s Friday
Andrew Frankel
Those with both very long memories and an uncommon ability to retain useless information may just recall me writing in this spot almost exactly a year ago about how much I wanted to own a Caterham again. I explained that lockdown had made me crave simple, straightforward fun like never before, and in the entire automotive pantheon, fun rarely comes simpler or more straightforward than that provided by a Caterham.
I then wobbled on about the Caterhams I’d owned, the one I built, the one I raced and the one I crashed before returning to my original theme concluding thus: “Of course I may or may not do anything about it... But the thought of hitting the open road again in a Caterham is helping sustain me through these troubled times. And if it works, I say don’t question it.”
Well it turns out I did do something about it. In one of those mythically rare occurrences where a journalist actually puts his money where his big fat mouth is, I am now the owner of a new Caterham. New to me that is, to the rest of the world it is 24 years old.
I bought it because it is literally the perfect Caterham for me and if you go back and read that story from a year back and see that I don’t even mention it, that’s simply because if I ever knew a car in that spec existed, I had long since forgotten.
Because what I needed was a Caterham with a modern chassis, in no great way any different to that used today. It advances the art of the original 1970s and 1980s Caterhams in three crucial ways: it has a longer cockpit so tall people like me actually fit, it has double wishbone suspension at the front which brings proper wheel control, and a De Dion tube at the back in place of the old live axle, which means it also has some ride quality.
But what I also wanted was a car with an old Kent crossflow motor, just like that in my first Caterham, the one I crashed at Goodwood over 35 years ago. There have been plenty of more powerful engines fitted to Caterhams since but none more characterful. But I knew that by the 1990s Caterhams now came with either lightweight, free-spinning Rover K-series power, or heavyweight, torque monsters from Vauxhall. What I failed to appreciate, probably because I guess very few were still sold, was that the good old crossflow remained in the catalogue until 1998.
And at least one must have been built, because I now own it: a Caterham with the modern bits I need to make it comfortable and usable, with the engine I really, really wanted.
I found it at Sevens & Classics, the Brands Hatch based business run by Andy Noble who was the sales director of Caterham Cars for years and whom I’ve known for decades. I didn’t even haggle: I went, I drove, I bought.
It wasn’t everything I’d hoped for: it was more. The car has spent its recent life in the South of France and has clearly been fastidiously cared for because it feels bizarrely like a new car. Not a creak from the chassis, no slack anywhere from the steering to the driveline, and a crossflow lovingly rebuilt to standard 137PS (100kW) specification, but full of reassuringly expensive forged steel. And breathing through what look like a brand new pair of 40mm Weber DCOE carburettors, it sounds incredible and goes more than fast enough for the exclusively road use I plan for the car.
And I know I’ve made the right choice because I’m doing what I always do when I fall on my feet car-wise: I make up journeys for it. Need something from the supermarket 10 miles away? I’d be delighted. Want the recycling taking to the tip? I’ll see if I can squeeze it in. And so on and on and on.
I have often said the key to a happy experience with a recreational car is knowing what you’re going to do with it. And in the case of the Caterham, the answer is absolutely everything.
Caterham
Seven
Thank Frankel it's Friday
