Cheapest way into something like a Caterham…

never driven a Caterham, just always had this itch I wanted to scratch. You’re not selling the owning or driving experience though!

its easily the best thing i’ve ever driven and i’d have one tomorrow if i could. so much fun its silly – and they were slow ones. a few of my friends had them for a period. the fast one i drove on a track was mental. not as mental as an atom but still mental. i dont think i`d want a really fast one on teh road. they have a few foibles (as do all these things) but its worth it for the grin.

You’re not selling the owning or driving experience though!

They are terrible on a motorway, but thats obviously not what they’re for.

If you have the right roads near you – or better still a racetrack, then they’re nigh on unbeatable.

There’s a world of difference between most £5k seven alikes and an actual caterham. As nickc says the majority of £5k seven alikes are pretty terrible – thats not to say that you cant build a really good one, you can, but the person that has only a 5k budget for a kit car, doesnt tend to be the same person that will do the job properly without bodging/cutting corners etc.

A caterham, whilst still impractical, noisy, sometimes uncomfortable, even in its cheapest form , will (most of the time!) be a lot better put together than the average 5k kit car and will hold value etc.

If you want a caterham then get a caterham – They are consistently good, whereas most of the seven alikes can range from terrible to really good, but there are not many really good ones about.

I built my Sylva Mojo during 2004-2005 in a small single garage. It was my daily driver for 15 years (did have a sensible family car too but Mojo was the ‘commuter’). 60k miles later and it’s still going strong, but now demoted to ‘3rd car’ status and fair weather use!

There’s nothing quite like a kit car for feeling connected to the road. Fantastic on track days too! Sylva developed a few models over the years, many of which had the rights sold off to different manufacturers, but all have the same ‘DNA’ (although some of the earlier ones looked less polished than the later ones!). Look out for the Striker (Caterham equivalent), Fury and Phoenix (sportscar bodies over a caterham style chassis layout), and then the later mid-engined models (Mojo, Riot, J15). They tend to be way cheaper than Caterhams (but also more variable in terms of how well they are put together).

Here’s mine in the foreground with a selection of Sylva ‘friends’ in the background…

http://www.mymojo.co.uk for more info ;-)

if you want close to a caterham driving experience, but with a bit more “proper” car practicality then a lotus elise is a good shout, but again not cheap.

Buy a mk2 MX5 and enjoy it. Then when (not if) it rusts too much to pass an MOT, transfer all the bits into a MK Indy RX-5: https://www.mksportscars.com/models/mk-indy-rx-5-model.html

Appears to be one of the better non-Caterham Caterhams:

I sold my big V8 Monaro last week and if I had the time I’d love to have something like a Caterham. TBH I get enough enjoyment from MTBing – that’s a big enough time and money drain without another car!

A caterham, whilst still impractical, noisy, sometimes uncomfortable

sounds perfect! if i’m getting a stupid car as a toy i want all of teh above! the point is that its stupid.

(i currently run a rolling project rusty VW type 2 which is also most of the above but also slow!)

I think that’s why Caterham are priced at “Proper Car Price” rather than “Some old rubbish thrown together with bits of Montegro” price. The point of the Caterham experience (sorry) is that it’s all the kit car fun with none of the usual kit car hassle. You can throw a blanket over it in Winter, and come back in the Spring and it will start.

I’d say it’s the other way around, Caterham are selling you a ‘7’, it’s a well-developed and sorted car.

Kit car’s range from the Robin Hood which used too much of a Sierra in an effort to make it as cheap as possible, to bonkers stuff like the Ultima which was capable of embarrassing suercars when it was launched. In between you’ve got allsorts, from the sensibly cheap options like folding and riveting a sheet of aluminum together to save on bucket seats, to throwing any old mishmash of worn out motorcycle shock absorbers on and hoping for the best.

Trouble is, the difference between a £5k car build and an £10k car build is 100%, but all those dampers, bushings, pedal boxes, steering wheel, dyno time, etc that eat up the extra cost above just getting a car shaped object through an SVA are what will make the difference.

I sold my big V8 Monaro last week and if I had the time I’d love to have something like a Caterham. TBH I get enough enjoyment from MTBing – that’s a big enough time and money drain without another car!

It’s not too bad.

I’ve got an old MG, which is even worse, but as long as you can resist the temptation to spend £££ on new shiny parts, then the actual day to day running costs are no worse than an average family car’s depreciation. e.g. it destroyed it’s differential last time out, but that only actually cost me a weekend refurbishing the axle (stripping old paint and repainting) and a full set of gaskets and hub bearings as I bought a good-ish axle as part of a job-lot on a pallet and built one good one and sold on the OK bits from the pallet to make the money back.

BMW Z4 3.0 for about £4k, strip some of the interior to get the weight down do ~1100kg

a z4 has nothing like 270kg of interior in it. At most you could pull out the passenger seat (<30kg) and you’d still be nearly a quarter of a tonne over your target weight and have no way to carry a passenger.

I’ve got an old MG, which is even worse, but as long as you can resist the temptation to spend £££ on new shiny parts, then the actual day to day running costs are no worse than an average family car’s depreciation. e.g. it destroyed it’s differential last time out, but that only actually cost me a weekend refurbishing the axle (stripping old paint and repainting) and a full set of gaskets and hub bearings as I bought a good-ish axle as part of a job-lot on a pallet and built one good one and sold on the OK bits from the pallet to make the money back.

Don’t. My willpower for resisting new/shiny/better is negligible with bikes, and similar with cars. Plus there’s a bit part of me that’s not done with having fun in a car, so I’m on shaky ground here. Financially my Monaro was one of the cheapest ownership experiences overall – zero depreciation offset the higher running costs and ongoing maintenance. It’s more the time aspect, give it a few years of house DIY etc and I’ll be begging to have a car to crawl under again.

a z4 has nothing like 270kg of interior in it. At most you could pull out the passenger seat (<30kg) and you’d still be nearly a quarter of a tonne over your target weight and have no way to carry a passenger.

A Z4 3.0se is 1290kg – so 190kg. You can take out the AC, the seats, the carpet, centre console, bulkhead storage, behind the seats storage, boot soundproofing/storage, door cards, etc. Having completely stripped the interior (not the boot) of a Z4 (have you?) I can tell your that there’s easily over 100kg in the cabin. The seats alone weigh almost 35kg. A racing bucket is less than 7kg. You’ve just stripped 63kg from just the seats! The door cards are over 5kg. The centre console/back of seats area is almost 20kg and we haven’t even got to carpets. There’s not much sound proofing under the carpets. 100kg is achievable without getting silly.

I’ve owned 4 Z4s – 2x 3.0Se, 1x 3.0Si Coupe and a Z4MC.

Raced a Caterham for 6 years. It is a tried and tested product and holds it value. In racing I’ve seen many big accidents and they are remarkably strong. I wouldn’t trust any other 7 replica to do the same.

I got back what I paid for mine. Other 7 type replicas are built to a lower cost and are heavier and do not hold value. My view would be take a loan and buy one. Enjoy and then sell on.

BTW I don’t know why anyone would buy one and not do track days etc. IMHO its a pointless format for the road, they are just too quick/uncomfortable to enjoy safely and at legal speed limits.

Caterham and Westfield will
definitely be out of budget – as will Dax.

I part built a Tiger Cat E1 and later bought a Tiger R6. The Cat E1 had quite a bit of sierra in it – rear suspension unit unbolts off thensierra and bolts in under the back of the Tiger chassis. Most have sierra pinto engines but I put in a Raw Wngineering Toyota 4AGE 1.6 lump. Much lighter and reviver and more power than a pinto. It was a lot of fun and should be at the cheaper end of Tigers.

The R6 will 100% be out of budget but it was epic – lighter / more powerful engine / more custom parts etc than the Cat E1.

I’d avoid Robin Hoods – they are really quite poor vs virtually every other caterham 7 clone. Bigger / heavier / slower etc.

There are lots of variants on the locost theme – I think a few companies starting selling that type of chassis and things like wiring looms etc. I imagine buying one secondhand is a minefield as you have to judge the quality of the build.

Sylvia / Raw striker is quite small – I very nearly bought a Fireblade engined one but then life got in the way and I bought something sensible instead. They are properly quick with the right spec and handle really well. Would imagine they’re out of budget too though.

I always had a hard on for the ‘Dax Rush’ kit cars, the best 7-alikes

Dax Rush 

Getting something like a Z4 down to 1100kg is still absolutely nothing like driving a car that is 550kg. A Z4 will never feel the same to drive (neither will an MX5) as a Caterham so don’t really understand why they are being suggested.
If you cannot get a decent Caterham like car for £5K, which it appears you can’t really, then that is the answer – you can’t have one.

BTW I don’t know why anyone would buy one and not do track days etc. IMHO its a pointless format for the road, they are just too quick/uncomfortable to enjoy safely and at legal speed limits.

hence why i want a slow one. the fast ones are just pointless on the road. having a slower one to start also helps the learning to drive it process.

i`m quite keen to potter about, do some wales/ devon drives, go to the bike park etc. take the kids out – nothing fancy. i dont have that competitive edge to do track stuff well.

Had a mk2 MX5… Sports suspension (had what felt like 25mm of travel, pot holes were to be avoided), braces across the engine and underneath the rear, lsd, straight through exhaust. The guy we bought it from had it from new and upgraded everything.

It ripped round corners. Was a laugh in the alps and driving through Tuscany with the roof down, shades on. Was great in winter as the heater was awesome and the interior space was tiny so it heated up quick (whereas the T5 took forever) and with skinny winter tyres the back end was lively.

Despite all its practicality and more or less trouble free ownership over the five years I still yearn for a Caterham….. Not just yet, but for when I find my place in the sun. Trouble is a left hand drive versions are silly expensive.

I sold my big V8 Monaro last week

:(

A guy I used to work with had one of those Robin Hood version. It looked shit.
My ex-boss’s mid-life crisis was to build a Caterham at work to race in a series as he had had am inflated opinion of his own driving skills. He binned it a couple of times, finished near the back in every race and then flogged it. Happy days!

Possibly an alternative, but will be over £10k would be a TVR Chimaera.

to bonkers stuff like the Ultima which was capable of embarrassing supercars when it was launched.

One of the directors at a place i used to work had an Ultima GTR. Last i saw it it was still the same bright red car, but had been through several incarnations.

Kept upgrading and modifying every year. Engine, wheels, brakes, suspension, interior and so on.

(Not quite kit car, but someone at my current place of work has a 962C… Which is all sorts of lovely.)

“something like a caterham” for £2500. get it bought!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/165738021027

@The FlyingOx, you’ll have to be the sole V8-bike-carrier on STW. As if Golfie wasn’t an exciting enough day out without a bit of V8 fun on the way to/from:

And it’s not exactly ‘something like a Caterham’, but it’s equally as close as the Z4s mentioned above (and I had one of those for nearly 5 years): you’ll get into a reasonable Monaro from £7k upwards if you want a different – but still fun – experience. My one above was a bit more at £12k but you’ll get a similar experience in a non-VXR model.

“something like a caterham” for £2500. get it bought!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/165738021027

Someone did say they didn’t want a fast one, so that’s perfect!

“something like a caterham” for £2500. get it bought!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/165738021027

Someone did say they didn’t want a fast one, so that’s perfect!

thats class! is it a sinclair c5 underneath?? probably still faster than my T2!!haha

Eldest daughter has a 92 Eunos which she has restored mostly her self with help from her Grandad. It’s been tuned a bit and the latest addition is a Turbo

Latest project is an 98 Evo 5 which she bought and had shipped from Japan

Fancy a red mx5 1.8 with some of the rust issues sorted? Owned by me for the last 7 years with no mechanical issues in that time! For a fraction of your budget ;-)

TBH isn’t there the added issue of being gassed and waking up in a Welsh village with a number if you drive one of those things :-)

Dum dum de dum dum dom dom.

Ooooww I do like an Evo,both fun and reasonably practical.

@DaveP

‘some’ rust issues sorted? Does that mean half the sills are left!? 🤣🤣

Have you checked you fit in a Caterham? (not being rude, but they are tight, I really struggle with the pedals (aside from squeezing my ass in)

I’d love a Caterham, but an MX-5 would be as much fun.

MX5s are better value for money, but its really not the same experience as a Caterham. MX5 is also so much more practical (dry, space etc).

MX5’s are rust boxes, so buy carefully

Thought that was only the MkI and MkIIs? Are MkIIIs as bad?

MK3s are just as bad, they are just newer. There are some proper rotten mk3 MOT fails starting to come up for sale cheap just now, one up for £600 on facebook just now with visible holes in the sills (as well as the arches bubbling, subframe corroded through etc etc)

£5k wont get a caterham, but will get a project 7 style car. Just be aware a lot of them are basket cases of years of DIY bodjery, based on a questionable build done by a random person years ago. Bike engined cars are cool, but bring their own problems. A lot of variations in suspension types depending on the build (if you care?) Do you want an axle, IRS etc?

A £5k 7 type car I would expect to have to do a fair bit or remedial work on, so would budget time and money accordingly.

If you are not going to track it I would just buy an MX5 or similar, and use it a lot more on the road. But if you want a 7 type car, you want a 7 type car, nothing else is the same raw experience. Track days dont have to be competitive, you can explore the limits in a safe environment. (very easy to get sucked in end up chasing lap times, power etc)

The standard S3 caterham is as bigyan says… Very snug! So try before buying. There is the SV which is slightly vider and slightly longer,

If you haven’t been in one, it really is worth hiring one first for the day or weekend, just to see if you get on with it as they are so very different to anything else on the road. Other sports cars are low .. a caterham you can put your hand on the floor when sat inside.

As others have said, they are unpleasant on the motorway, I only take mine on the motorway reluctantly, but country A and B roads, there is nothing like it… Another thing is the 7 club: heading out for a run with other 7s is just next level enjoyment.

Re the pedals in a caterham, the pedal box is very narrow, so narrow shoes are pretty much an essential, those race driving boots are the best thing,but you look a bit of a plum.

There’s a lot of adjustment that can be made to a caterham cockpit, the seat can be moved beyond the adjustment of the sliders, lifted or lowered or tilted, the pedals can be adjusted for spacing plus angle etc,so just can set them up just so for proper heel and toeing.

I’m standard STW recommend what you’ve got way, I was going to suggest an eunos (mx5).
But then this popped up on my FB feed 🤣

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/155260446498?mkrid=710-53481-19255-0&mkevt=1&mkcid=1&toolid=10001&campid=5338829763&customid=MSUK-race

Hate this thread. Read it on the train home yesterday, last night idly looked up old MG’s for sale. Oh, one not so far away. Reg has my daughter’s initials. Sent email to the seller. His reply:”Why not pop over?”

Bought it for £5k this morning. Silly boy.

There’s places you can hire a caterham or similar and give it a proper road test, actually live with it a wee bit.

Some of the disagreement in this thread is because they’re all things to all men- you can get a turnkey “kit car” or you can get a box of bits and a rusty mx5 and bodge it together and not be able to go for a drive without a bit falling off, and all the wheels point in different directions. And they’re both great. If I had one, it’d be a shit one, because that’s what I’d enjoy- dealing with failure, bashing it together myself, learning the skills I don’t have while doing it for the first time ever, and making bad decisions. If I had a good one it’d be pointless. The old boy on my old street that I used to lend a hand to occasionally will probably never finish his, and at this point, he’s got no use for it anyway, he probably got too fat for it a decade ago. But he loves it.

So it’s one of those things where the only way to do it right is to first understand what doing it right means for you. And there’s people that no matter what it’ll never be right for them.

Same as my mx5- I spent ages finding the perfect spec with hardly any rust, and ignored the minor details that the paint’s all falling off and the crank’s shagged. Drove it the length of the country and did a trackday with it rattling its little duratec heart out. And now I have an even worse mazda 6 to rob the engine out of. It’s an absolute disaster all round and I couldn’t be happier.

It’s an absolute disaster all round and I couldn’t be happier

Deserves recognition as the most uplifting thing in the Internet today!

Over budget, but there’s some nice stuff on Toybox cars usually

Toybox

I’m liking this thread. For the OP’s budget I would be going for an MX5. I’ve got an Elise and when I was buying it I drove a few Caterhams. Each to their own but the Caterhams were too impractical for me and I wondered whether I’d get the use out of one. Something like a MX5 with a practical roof is a year round car that you can drive everywhere, you feel OK on motorways.

Caterhams seem best on track. You see plenty of MX5 at track days too which is the real place to enjoy a car like this. Most of the Caterhams at track days seem to arrive on trailers!

tonyg2003
Full Member

Most of the Caterhams at track days seem to arrive on trailers!

Yeah, there’s definitely a heirarchy! TBH though with track use it’s not so much trailering it there, it’s being able to trailer it back, it’s only a matter of time til something goes wrong…

Trailer’s more a sign of space than anything else though, wish I had room for one. And a car that can legally tow, that’d be useful