Seven heaven

Caterham’s new high and it’s not for the shy

Just like an addict, there are some cars I need to drive at least once a year not just because they are so great, but also to remind myself how much better they are than other cars. They are my automotive yardsticks.

Any Lotus qualifies, the

Porsche 911 and Cayman, and a Morgan. But above all, each year I must have my Caterham Seven fix.

Every year since the late 1980s I have found an excuse to drive a Caterham, which has not been difficult because while the cottage industry sports car company doesn’t produce models that are substantially different from each other, almost every year there’s a new variant; a new engine or a new specification.

For 2022 we have the Caterham

420 Cup, probably the most extreme Seven I’ve driven on the road. Or at least one of the most full-on.

Its job in the Caterham catalogue is to provide race track performance in a road-legal format.

Going to a track day with a car on a trailer is a hassle so being able to drive it there is a real boon. The 420 Cup would also be perfect for competing in hillclimbs or sprints.

Caterham names its cars after their power-to-weight ratio and as most Caterhams weigh about 500kg, we can deduce that the 420 Cup has 210bhp under its bonnet. This power comes from a 2.0-litre Ford Duratec engine which in this car is fitted with a dry sump.

It means the engine oil is kept in a separate tank and is fed to the engine and removed back to the tank by pumps. The advantage is that on a track the oil does not run up the side of the sump and starve the engine of lubricant in corners.

But the real standout feature is its gearbox. Made by a company called Sadev (which makes gearboxes for rally cars) it is a six-speed sequential gearbox, which means instead of a usual H-pattern, you change gears as you do on a motorbike by pushing forwards and backwards on the gearlever. You need to use the clutch when pulling away and going down through the gears, but to change up a gear you just pull back on the stick. The harder you are on the throttle and the more engine revs you have, the smoother the gearchange. In truth, it will work better on a race track than the road. This Caterham is not one for the shy. There’s no windscreen so wearing a helmet is advisable and our car has the optional £900 full race roll cage. That’s probably a good idea for driving on a track. The performance on the road is intoxicating with drama not from acceleration forces, but from the engine noise and the bang-bang as each gear slams in. Adjustable Bilstein dampers allow you in seconds to turn the 420 Cup

from a bone-shaking circuit scorcher to a relatively comfortable road car.

All Caterham Sevens are huge fun, even the most basic £24,990 Seven 170, which is great news because the 420 Cup costs £54,990.

Mind you, Caterhams depreciate very little and if you use a car like a BMW M4 on a track day you can factor in wearing through £1,000 worth of tyres and possibly a set of even more expensive brakes. That’s a bit of man maths for you.