By Chris Evans Event for the Daily Mail
Published: 21:08 GMT, 25 October 2014 | Updated: 15:16 GMT, 26 October 2014Caterham Seven 620R ?????
It’s that time of year again.
The time when Caterham send me something they claim to be a car but what is actually a secret weapon commissioned by my enemies designed to give me a heart attack, thus thwarting my radio renaissance forever.
Last year’s effort, the 160, almost worked, so this year they’ve upped the ante and sent me a vehicle that looks the same, but is in fact packed with even more insanity.
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While the 160 has a 660cc three-cylinder Suzuki turbo engine, the 620R has a 2.0-litre block of Ford horsepower so mean and meaty it barely fits within the chassis; it actually looks like it’s physically spilling out the sides of the engine bay.
‘Bigger, heavier, faster. You’ll see,’ said the man from Caterham. Gulp. This was already preposterous.
Then he added, ‘Oh, and it’s supercharged as well,’ just in case I wasn’t petrified enough. Beyond ludicrous. Caterhams are totally tonto, but this is the most tonto Caterham of them all.
What this leaves us with, then, is more than 300 brake of unbridled horsepower strapped to a tiny set of wheels, a featherlight frame and no more than a sliver of space somewhere rear of centre for two nutters to try to fit in – just before they kiss their loved ones goodbye, take to the road and leave it to fate as to whether they’ll see each other again.
The ‘car’ arrived on Thursday lunchtime for a seven-day stay. However, there was a problem.
Not only could I barely look at this contraption for fear of dissolving into a puddle of cold sweat, but to compound matters, the skies of Berkshire had suddenly realised summer was no longer – and decided to sob in their lament. For days.
Dials are minimal. There is no temperature gauge, the rev counter is the biggest thing in there but still really small, although nowhere near as tiny as the speedoWe’d had a month’s rain in just four hours at one point, and it didn’t look like it was about to abate any time soon.
With the roads like rivers, how might the extra power affect such a fragile pocket rocket?
Especially with the added lunacy of the Avon ZZR tyres, which, to quote the company blurb, are ‘the fastest dry-weather, track-orientated, road-legal race tyres in the world’. Oh, sweet joy.
Like that mad Felix Baumgartner, who parachuted to Earth from space, I found myself patiently waiting for the right weather conditions in which to attempt my death-defying mission.
Each day came and went with still no respite.
By the following Wednesday, the Caterham was yet to turn a wheel. She sat under the beech tree in our drive looking ever sadder, ever more unloved, ever wetter. And I mean really wet.
On Thursday I had no choice but to take her for a spin regardless – she was being picked up in a couple of hours – and when I pulled the roof off and took a look inside, the first thing I saw was my own face reflected back at me from the murky depths of the footwell.
It was water, and lots of it. Whether it came in through the louvres on the bonnet or via the various gaps between the hood and doors, I don’t know. But this car does not do rain.
Far from being more scary than the 160 of a year ago, the Caterham Seven 620R is nowhere near as much of a heart-attack terrorist because of, rather than in spite of, the sheer mass of the 2.0-litre engineInternally, it doesn’t do much either.
Dials are minimal. There is no temperature gauge, the rev counter is the biggest thing in there but still really small, although nowhere near as tiny as the speedo, which looks like one of those Casio LCD watches I used to hanker for when the new Argos catalogue arrived through my mum’s letterbox.
There are flashes of carbon fibre to go with the flashy racing-style bucket seats (which look great but are fairly immovable) and there is a swanky-looking double bank of dashboard-mounted race-style control switches – although these are for boring practical things like windscreen wipers, hazard warning lights and heating rather than anything racy.
It’s all very fantasy-land, but hey, so is the idea of Gemma Arterton turning up on my doorstep one day declaring that she’s Noah and Eli’s long-lost Auntie Bond Girl. Doesn’t mean it’s not going to raise a smile.
And so as a glimmer of daring sun finally peeked through to tempt me out of my cowardice, the roads now downgraded to merely dangerous (as opposed to treacherous) and the clock counting down to the man coming back again, I could put it off no longer.
Layers and layers of perfectly circular tyre marks are yours if you want them – as long as you don’t mind making yourself physically sick in the process. Which you willIt was time. Magnetos on, starter engaged and there she was, alive and at least half as frightening as I imagined she would be.
My trepidation was further piqued as I remembered that driving her would involve getting to grips with a rather agricultural British Touring Car-style sequential gearbox.
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With not-dissimilar nerves jangling inside me to those when I set off on my driving test 30 years ago, I nervously jerked out of the drive and on my way.
But a few yards down the road I quickly recalled how cars like this are like rodeo ponies. They devour uncertainty. I was going to have to man up, and fast.
I grimaced. I may even have closed my eyes momentarily, before depressing the accelerator more than I thought I’d dare, and certainly more than I’d wanted to.
But it was by far the best decision I’d made that day, as instantly I sensed the palpable safety that there was in acceleration and forward momentum as opposed to subtlety and apprehension.
‘What the heck,’ I thought in my next cerebral breath, ‘who needs a clutch anyway?’
And with that I began hoofing up and down the ’box with my right foot flat to the floor and my left foot in no way part of the scenario.
What was going on? I have never been a speed freak, yet here I was in a machine I had been living in fear of and I was teetering on the brink of enjoying myself. And then it came to me.
Far from being more scary than the 160 of a year ago, the 620 is nowhere near as much of a heart-attack terrorist because of, rather than in spite of, the sheer mass of the 2.0-litre engine.
The extra weight makes for a much calmer package.
Well whaddya know? It appears one can over-worry oneself into having a pleasant afternoon of extreme motoring.
Sure, there were still loads of things that were a nightmare, such as getting the gear stick into reverse and neutral.
And while the steering wheel was removable to aid cockpit access, like an F1 car, it was far more removable than it was put-back-on-able.
£49,995 , caterham.co.uk
Engine Supercharged 2.0-litre Ford Duratec
Power 310hp
Top speed 155mph
0-60mph 2.79 seconds
Transmission Six-speed sequential
Standard features Carbon fibre seats, 4-point race harness, quick-release steering wheel
The most questionable thing about this car, though, other than the abysmal roof, is the massive, perilous silencer that sits parallel to the sill on the driver’s side.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s gorgeous in a big bulbous, Boys’ Own, Casey Jones kind of way, but it is red hot for most of the time and just waiting to melt the skin off the back of your calves, if for some reason you happen to forget it’s there.
Which you will do. A lot. Due to the euphoria-induced state of forgetfulness you’ll be in having arrived back home still alive from yet another daredevil sortie in your beloved-but-bonkers Caterham.
The only other two things I have to report are as follows. I was told a full tank of fuel at full tilt lasts less than an hour, which, incredibly, is true.
And finally, this car doughnuts like it’s a rotor on a helicopter.
‘Cars like this are like polo ponies. They devour uncertainty. You have to man up and accelerate’
Layers and layers of perfectly circular tyre marks are yours if you want them – as long as you don’t mind making yourself physically sick in the process. Which you will.
Calling all petrolhead adrenaline junkies therefore: the 620R is waiting.
Place your order now, while stocks last and before your family request you are sectioned due to no longer being of sound mind and body.
Mostly mind, where this Crazy Cat(erham) is concerned.
DRIVE TALKING
WHAT'S HOT ON THE ROAD THIS WEEK
With NICK BAGOT
SO PRICES DO GO DOWN...
Toyota has lopped a whacking £2,500 off the entry-level price of its nippy 2.0-litre coupe, the GT86, ahead of a facelift across the range in 2015. The new ‘Primo’ version still has plenty of kit – including air-con, 17in alloys, power-folding mirrors, those meaty tailpipes, tyre-pressure monitoring and touchscreen multimedia system – but costs from just £24,995. It’s available to order now, with first deliveries due in January. THE GREEN MACHINE
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