Caterham 7 Super Sprint

Caterham 7 Super Sprint

I’ m not going to fit that seat,” she said.
“You don’t even want to try?”
“I’m six months pregnant.”
“You say this like I don’t know.”
“Sometimes, I wonder. But if I get in there, I won’t be able to get out.”
“Right? I want to drive it all the time, too.”

And that, dear reader, is how you get your long-suffering and normally inquisitive wife to roll her eyes and walk back into the house without even asking why you’re sitting behind the wheel in the garage in the middle of winter, ignition  off,  making  engine  noises  with  your mouth like a lunatic.

Moments like this abound when you buy a Caterham 7. No one with full command of
their faculties buys a doorless, 40-inch-tall au-tomobile with the luggage space of a La-Z-Boy.

Driving one is like starring in your own Tex Av-ery cartoon, an odd mix of joy and abuse. Wind blast evacuates your nostrils. Bugs somehow end up inside your ears. But every traffic jam becomes an autocross, and every corner prompts giggles. It’s a madcap whippet of a car, an old-school drug addiction on wheels.

I found my 2003 Super Sprint at a classic-car dealer  in  New  England  in  February  of  2013. Because the 7 changed so little over decades of production, you buy used ones on options and condition, not model year. I wanted carburetors (looks, smell, intake honk), a de Dion axle (better roughroad handling than the once-standard live axle), the prettier narrow body (Caterham also offers a large-cockpit model), and bare-aluminum bodywork. That plus my budget meant an 1800-mile, 135-hp, Ford Kent-powered car. It cost $28,500 top of the market for that spec, but the nicest one I’d seen in six months of searching.

Like old motorcycles, most 7s sit a lot and vibrate parts loose when running, so it’s wise to do a nut-and-bolt check after a purchase.

Mine turned into a cleanup: I spent the first three months with the car in pieces, chasing everything  from  electrical  faults  to  a  binding steering column. The car came apart and went together like Legos. A recurved distributor and carburetor rejet eliminated flat spots in the factory tune; a new aluminum hood and dash top  were  shipped  in  from  England  to  replace corroded originals. Liquid threadlocker was bought by the gallon. The engine leaked oil, as British Fords do. When I was done, it was tight, reliable, and a hoot, whether pouncing around town or ripping through the country.

When I sold the Cat this spring, it was bit-tersweet, and only to buy a race car a vintage Formula Ford, in order to try an even purer version of the steel-tubes-and-Kent- motor experience. That said, the thought process is strangely circular. Strapped into the Ford before a race, all I keep thinking is, “Man, if only this thing were street-legal . . .”

VITAL STATS
ORIGINAL PRICE (NEW): 
$40,000 (est)
PURCHASE PRICE (USED):
$28,500
POWERTRAIN: 
1.7-liter  I-4,  135
hp, 122 lb-ft; RWD,
5-speed manual