Kitcat

Slngsht: You know, they sell this stuff called"paint". Once all the deconstruction of your car has occurred, you could, at the risk of destroying your car's current "patina", slap some black stuff on and change it from Franklin to Darth!

Maybe it depends on the suspension design? (Are some more prone to spin the unloaded rear wheel?). I know a battle raged on the Elise-talk site for years because Lotus did not offer LSD on the Elise and buyers wanted the option. Lotus's defense was they had tried cars both ways and the ones w/o LSD were faster on road courses (less weight). The buyers finally prevailed and LSD is now an option (The customer is always right). Lotus still maintains that in a road course application, LSD makes the car slower.

Deman makes a good point, IMHO. What is amazing to me is how expensive many of these vehicles are. Especially when you realize how basic and stripped down they are. If you figured the cost, per pound, of a new run-of-the mill Caterham, it's in Ferrari territory.

My dad removed trees for a living. During high school and college, I was his feckless assistant. We had no episodes quite that bone headed tho we did knock out our share of wires, transformers, etc. We also used the old "pull it with the truck" technique. I recall one incident where he tied into the top of a tree, made his cut in the trunk and then jumped in the truck to tug the tree the right way. I watched in horror as he let off the brake, let out the clutch and then was dragged, backwards in the wrong direction by the humongus tree. It took us all day to get out of that one.

Ian 7: Do you untighten first, then re torque to spec? Or, do you put the T-wrench on it and if it clicks, leave it where it is? My concern is that if you don't loosen it first, you mite not notice any nuts that are over-torqued. But maybe that's not really an issue?

Thanks all. I have that old Archie Bell and the Drells record from '67 ready to play.

Last winter an identical car sold for $32K on Elise Talk (I shudda bought it!).

Vary clever Martin! You wouldn't happen to have a diagram showing the location of all those bolts would you? I know I can just follow my nose but am afraid I will miss something. (eg, wouldn't have thot of the steering system bolts).

OK, it's my first Spring w/my Caterham and I want to tighten up all those nuts in the chassis/suspension/elsewhere that might have worked loose a little. Anyone have a handy diagram showing the likeliest culprits, along with the recommended torque settings?

550 hp, $230K, yes its a bit over the top. How much of that power could this lightweight car ever put to the road? Seems like a lot of money for on-demand wheel spin.

Great concept as long as you have a GPS, like a Garmin. I did 2 weeks in Italy this year and never figured out the signs-But w/our polite, english speaking Garmin tellling me where to turn, etc., it was no problem, or, as we like to say in Italy, non problema.

Not as interesting as Mazda's picture of Franklin's reincarnation, which looks like a grenade went off in a pipe factory. I do like the white ghost of a Seven floating watchfully over head in your shop!

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.