went to barbon speed hill climb today where there was several 7's,but one that stood out by far was the caterham hayabusa. its lines were so superior,as well as its poise, and stance.
along with that,the engineering and workmanship on the car were awesome.and just by looking at it,you could tell it was gonna be very quick in its class.
it was way faster than any of the other 7 style cars,and i know the driver may have had something to do with it, but it really was very quick,very very well planted in the bends and just looked superb. i left before the final timed run but on the previous run it clocked 25.60 seconds which was 4 hundredths of the fastet time ever recorded on the hill in that class. and as the hill was drying out, i reckon it will have beaten that time on its last run. as a comparison the 300+ bhp imrezzas etc were clocking around 30 secs with a 430 bhp evo6 around 27 secs

Amazng what an oversize wallet will buy you.
Gonna swop forums Dan ?

[Edited on 18/6/11 by CRAIGR]

am not swapping forums mate. are you?

What for ? Can't get better than this no matter how much your catering van is.

[Edited on 18/6/11 by CRAIGR]

i know. thats why im a locostbuilder. but i reckon for the price mine has cost me, i could have bought that 1999 caterham busa!

apart from the lines etc. the reason it was probably better was that is cost £££, so the guy didn't mind throwing even more £££ at it to get it set up right etc.

^^^ total bull sh*t
the reason it was better was because it was better! it was a 1999 caterham against near new westy's etc. it was a quality car which was set up properly. had 196 bhp so not had masive money spent on engine.
there was imprezas and evos etc whth £50k plus spent on them and the sub £15k caterham destroyed them. why is there such a bad perception of caterham owners?
i talked to the guy for over an hour and he was probably the nicest guy i talked to today. hes had work done by mnr and daytuner.(the same companys we use) wtf is the problem?

Sub 15k caterham with a busa running 196 bhp i would doubt that.
Would also bet a sub 10k busa mnr,mk,fisher in the right hands would lick a double the the weight and more bhp evo etc in the right circumstances..
Unfortunately in my experience a lot of caterham owners don't have a barking clue about what they're actually driving as they just get someone else to sort their cars for them unlike the likes of locostbuilders who struggle along themselves

I agree you with, great cars and worth the money they fetch

If I could afford a rolling chassis of one i would go for it and fit my engine to it

A Cat with a Busa engine is a pretty rare beastie and would be considered a bit of a 'frankenstein' in Caterham-land where original is king! It might not therefore be as valuable as you would think.

I completely understand the Caterham thing. When I did the sums, which I did about 5 times I worked out that I could have bought a circa 10 year old road sport with a poverty spec.

The clean lines come from having an ally body, some kits still have them.


I know which i'd prefer to have.

[Edited on 18/6/11 by franky]

i would bet a well set up cross flow caterham would be more than a match for most 7's

Caterham's are superior...

Money = Speed

You get what you pay for at the end of the day..

quote:

---

Originally posted by daniel mason
^^^ total bull sh*t
the reason it was better was because it was better! it was a 1999 caterham against near new westy's etc. it was a quality car which was set up properly. had 196 bhp so not had masive money spent on engine.
there was imprezas and evos etc whth £50k plus spent on them and the sub £15k caterham destroyed them. why is there such a bad perception of caterham owners?
i talked to the guy for over an hour and he was probably the nicest guy i talked to today. hes had work done by mnr and daytuner.(the same companys we use) wtf is the problem?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by daniel mason
i would bet a well set up cross flow caterham would be more than a match for most 7's

---

It could also be that he was just better at driving than the rest. Back in my Elise days I watched someone with a 230+bhp supercharged Elise (before Lotus started doing it themselves) get blown into the weeds by someone running a bog standard 120 bhp K series Elise because he could actually drive it.

I have to at the myth that all Caterham owners have a personal mechanic who fettles their car before Sir takes it out for his yearly spin!

Most owners are fanatical, know their onions and are handy enough with a spanner!

As for the 'product'. A Caterham kit handles straight-out-of-the-boxes it was delivered in! The same cannot be said for a LOT of seven-clone kits!

Truth is, and many don’t like to hear it, Caterams are better engineered and the product has been more highly developed (because of time in production) than almost any kit, 7 or otherwise!

Yes the’re are some other good products out there and everyone has to conider value for money or how much work they want to do themselves but to naively say “the guy only winning because he’s spent more money” just sounds like sour grapes.

We all spend our money’s and make’s our choice’s

Thats a brave title to post on here ! and sure to start a bunfight, but i do agree with you
they do handle well. A good basic design with years of development.

As for the owners, like any other walk of life a percentage will be c*cks
but I reckon a lot of the trouble stems from penis envy........

Al.

quote:

---

Originally posted by daniel mason
nothing compares to a caterham

---

daniel mason - 19/6/11 at 09:54 AM

am not trying to cause a row. i was just stating that the caterham looked and went better than any of the others there!
like you say its down to budget and i do understand they cost more than others. there is nothing wrong with my mnr,or any other kit manufacturers,and i wouldnt hesitate to build another one.
but the caterham looked superb.and the owner certainly new his 'onions'

[Edited on 19/6/11 by daniel mason]

---

imp paul - 19/6/11 at 10:07 AM

its always good to know your 'onions' thats what i say dan lol

---

probablyleon - 19/6/11 at 10:36 AM

I'll start by playing devil's advocate and say my personal favourite of all the seven variants has always been the Caterham / series 3 Lotus. I've always felt that the lines and ratios are 'just right' and difficult to improve on, which is probably why the 'seven' has been so popular and successful for so long. Maybe if it had it not been for the Westfield / Caterham litigation thing more 'sevens' would be closer to Caterham's design than they are today.

That said... Surely in an area of the car world that is so defined by modularity and modification the '??? is better than ??? argument' is almost pointless. If you need better brakes, get better brakes. If you want better suspension improve the components, and more importantly set it up right etc etc. Even Caterham owners have to do this. I'm sure when Colin Chapman first rolled up to Le Mans most of the cars on the grid were 'better engineered and developed' but it didn't stop Lotus from doing a fair amount of 'arse kicking'.

---

RK - 19/6/11 at 01:28 PM

Most people who know anything, know that the Caterham is a great car. That's why we want to build copies of it.

---

mistergrumpy - 19/6/11 at 01:58 PM

Mine's a copy (well slightly butchered copy) of a Lotus 7 not a Caterham.

---

907 - 19/6/11 at 03:32 PM

Apparently a Caterham can be sold to pay for an impending honeymoon,
or that's the plan so my son tells me.

Although where they are going that costs £11k god only knows.


Personally I'd keep the car and have a weekend in Clacton.

Cheers,
Paul G


1600 Vx Caterham

---

JimSpencer - 19/6/11 at 04:03 PM

By Eck there's some opinionated folk about arn't there..

The car in question (if it's the one I think it is) is very quick and very well peddaled too, and I believe changed hands S/H for about £15k not so long ago too, so what the OP posted was factually correct.

Plus

The number of people in the hillclimb scene that arn't nice people you can count on one hand IMHO - everybody's along for the crac.

But

It's got very little to do with brands or £'s (unless you count time and experience, I suppose you can theoretically buy both..) it's nearly all to do with setup and driving.

However

There's no 'stand out' brand in the hill (or sprint) record holders for the Specialist production and Mod Prod classes, Westfield and Sylva have got a good chunk too, as have a few 'others' - what actually normally happens is a good car/driver combination come along and set a few records and a few years later then get beat by another good car / driver combination.

I know the spec of most of the quick cars in Specialist production and there's very few that you probably couldn't buy for the £15k mentioned (if they came up for sale) and several that you could very easily build for that budget, but then of course comes setting it up and driving it..

Or you could just buy a 1100cc class single seater AND a tidy locost with the change

---

daniel mason - 19/6/11 at 05:27 PM

thanks jim. hes a really nice guy too.really enjoyed chatting to him, and having a good look round his car.
out of curiosity jim; what are you allowed to do to the cars to compete in the up to 1400cc class?
as i noticed the caterham was on slicks, as was the megabusa in the same class! can you turbo/supercharge etc? or do engines have to be standard? cheers

---

JimSpencer - 20/6/11 at 08:01 AM

Hi

Ok these were the entry regulations for the event:-

Barbon Regs

So on page one we have the applicable classes, for what's commonly known as a 'Locaterfield' (i.e. anything 7 like!) you're looking at either:-
2A / 2B / 2C if the cars' road legal, taxed, insured and MOT'd

3F / 3G / 3H if the cars non road legal.


In classes 2, the car will obviously need all the requirements to drive it there (and some folks do - did it myself for years) so fully road legal PLUS it must have reverse, and in the North West series it'll need a windscreen for most championships too. Tyres to MSA list 1B (i.e. Road Legal soft trackday rubber - Avon ZZR, Toyo R888, Yoko A048's etc)

In class 3 anything goes, so no lights, screens, no reverse needed and you run very soft racing slicks, Avon A15 compound and the like, plus a set of wets too.

In any of the classes the engine mods allowed are pretty much free, but forced induction has a multiplier of 1.4 applied to it (i.e. a 1200 Turbo: - 1200*1.4 = 1680, therefore in the up to 1700cc class) the engine has to remain where it was intended by the manufacturer and come from a land based vehicle they made 5000 of - so pretty much any production car or bike unit.


This is a National B level meeting (regional & clubmans) so you'll find pretty much these classes are the same nationwide, but with minor variation i.e. in a lot of the country 2C & 3H wouldn't exist and the bike engined stuff is lumped in, and you wouldn't need a screen in the 2's classes down south.
In addition the classes numbering can change too - you go off the description which doesn't.

Hillclimbing classes (and sprints) sound complicated rules wise, but they're not once you get involved even as a spectator, it's just that they deal with mulltiple classes within one discipline and event so it looks much worse than it actually is!

HTH

---