Kitcat

Excellent car, excellent price. Maybe the ultimate Crossflow Caterham out there? I am surprised Tony hasn't bought it back-he's been publicly mourning its loss for years.

What's to think about? Huge power, light weight, just do it! Or, to try to duplicate the experience: nail a reclining chair to the back of a flat bed trailer truck & have it driven down a bumpy road at 100 mph. Imagine that you can stop or turn on a dime. That's sort of it, especially if its 110 degrees in the shade that day:).

I love my Toyo RA1's. Excellent rain tire & track tire. Ditching the 10 year old Michelins for these tires transformed the car.

Trade your IS 350 in on a IS-F:).

Auto-X school is a great learning experience. Excellent way to acquire car control skills. In my case, those skills wh/I acquired in auto-X saved my family from a sure wreck on the interstate: In dark/driving rain, fast lane floods, turns into a pond, drivers spin out of control. I am in the middle lane and suddenly there are cars and people standing all over the highway ahead of me-just like an auto X cone slalom. I was a hero to my family for somehow threading the needle without hitting anything. I also found the transition to track days pretty easy based on what I learned about driving on the edge in auto-x.

OK, I will quit complaining about my Caterham's occasional hiccup.

I would be surprised if your mighty 1600 cc Kent engine put out enough power to make a limited slip critical. My mighty 1700 cc Kent engine has only rarely spun the inside rear wheel, and then just for a roatation or two at the track and not at all since I upgraded my tires to Toyo RA1's.Maybe if you plan a lot of auto-xing, but otherwise there are other things to spend money on (like getting more power out of your mighty Kent engine:)).

I kept all I got for one year out of curiosity. I had almost 200.

Tom: Your cornet reminds me of the nickle-plated Seven for sale now on E-bay, as mentioned in the for-sale section of this site. My particular strategy for remaining poor: Three boys, two in college, one in grad school. I am paying full freight for all three. In all honesty, there is nothing I'd rather spend my money on , even cars (tho I know that may get me banned from this group:)).

Tom: Thanks for the refresher! Sounds like you have access to that particular R & T-or a photographic memory? I have a few semi-moldy early R & T's from '63-64 still lying around but not that one. An Elite in a basket truly would have been a project. Especially since it was put in a basket for a reason. But it is so pretty. Maybe you could have just reassembled it in non-running condition and just looked at it:)? Mike

Yes, the Elite does get my vote for prettiest, esp in the green livery shown just above. It was partially obscured in the R &T photo and painted a two tone color (Whaaaa?). So my eyes were drawn to the Seven which, while spectacular, wouldn't be my number one. In fact I have no trouble casting my vote for the Elite as the most gorgeous sports car of all time. Does anyone else besides me remember the article R & T did on the Elite when it went out of production (in approx 1962)? I recall a 2 page picture of a rust colored Elite sitting on a red or orange brick road. It was stunning! My memory is probably off a bit since it has been 46 or so years. But I still remember feeling a great loss that such a car would cease production before I had a chance to buy it.

While I must admit to a "slight" bias in favor of 7's, I still think your beautiful green and yellow car, next to all the other Lotus models, makes them all look like just so many near-misses. The Seven, tho, is perfect.

You were desperate for a drive! I too have been watching the salt wash away here & getting tempted-it's been over a month. Temperature is 57 degrees at 9:50 am so that's great but the rain is pouring down. I agree that the worst part of rain is being right down in the car/truck spray. A set of wipers on the inside wld help too (assuming the top is off). I have found that the car is pretty weatherproof. Of course, by the time you wiggle in/out with the top up you are soaked. All part of the fun.

Such an avoidable tragedy. What were his parents thinking? Its bad enough that he died but his 4 friends too. So many needlessly broken hearts! I will bet that this ends up in court with lots of finger pointing. It sounds like it was well known that kids had multiple ways of sneaking onto the airport runway and seeing "what'll she do". So I am also betting that, out of the various culpable parties, the airport ends up being the biggest loser, money-wise.

I helped run an autocross club for many years. Every so often a racing hero would show up, take his first run and then do a smokey burnout in celebration. Then we'd have a friendly chat with him and explain why we were refunding his money and requiring him to leave. This was an excellent way of delivering the message to the other drivers that hot-dogging and auto-crossing were different sports. It really kept the drivers who were also tempted to express themselves in some dramatic fashion under control. That didn't mean drivers didn't occasionally end up upside down, wrapped around a tree, or sideways in traffic in the middle of the street next to the auto-x site, etc, but those were honest mistakes:).

You can never have too many Sevens!!!!!!!!

Al- Thanks for working on this. After spearheading the '07 gathering, with Mazda, and working your butt off the entire 4 days of the event, I was afraid you would say:"Never again!" Much appreciated! Mike

Al: The Buffalo proposal came from Tony V on the Sevens list, where you re-posted this topic today. Mike

I waited til my 60's to buy one too. I am not sure that was so bad. I enjoyed reading about them and anticipating driving one for decades. I wld recommend finding one nearby and talking the owner into a ride or maybe even drive. Maybe its not all you imagine-maybe more. Then, buy the best you can afford. I believe the difference between a normal car and a Seven is vastly greater than a state of the art Seven and something more rudimentary (Translation-even a clapped out underpowered Seven is pretty exotic compared to a "real" car). I notice, BTW, that Sevens and Elans has a Caterham for sale for abt $20K. Not that I am trying to tempt a callow youth into such an irrational purchase.

Two pole switch from Harbor Freight: $2.99. SCCA 4 pole switch: $26.00 Official Caterham switch: $93.00 Hmmmm....

My pieces are in my car (waiting to be installed).

I wonder how quickly that little rig stops (if it does)?

Just ordered two, thanks!

Armco, Armco, Armco. Just what I hate in a track. Plus it's very narrow so there's no where to run/hide. With cars like ours, where the inherent safety margin is small, a way to counteract that is to drive on newer tracks which been designed to be safe (large run-offs, minimal Armco, wide track with lots of passing room). The older tracks, like Spa, look like death traps to me.

Caterham has a "Glossy Instruction Manual"? Where do I get it? My Caterham manual is a 3-ring binder with confusing diagrams, and various assembly hints & suggestions. Fortunately I bought the car used and the manual was tossed into the deal and now serves now as my "repair" manual.