Chris Webb

Thanks for the heads-up on the California Caterham Club. I joined that forum before joining here but for some reason I cannot post or reply to a post. I emailed the admin about this but so far, crickets...hopefully they give me permission to post at some point.

Gorgeous car, congratulations! I'm in the dreaming stage so it's great to see someone move on to living the dream.

NVP66S, Thanks for this info! Funny I was just reading up on the Manik. I clicked on a link for flyin' miata that took me to a crazy Japanese fashion site...with no 7's...

Thanks, that's a great point regarding a used 7, especially here in Southern California which is essentially a rolling car museum.

Thanks Croc! This is super helpful info and also confirms what I'm starting to learn by searching the Googlesphere. I love the Caterhams but from what I've seen, beyond my budget. Birkins seem great. I saw the one that recently sold here. The Westfields seem very economical if the stateside dealer carries kits at similar prices. Definitely a fan of the proportions of the Lotus 7 III's...classic with just the right amount of curve in the snout. But that's just me. Probably would stick with a 4 cyl...Hyabusa looks awesome but may not be the most economical. �� V8...heck why not? I wonder how well a car this light manages the HP and Torque? Regardless of stroke I would imagine gearing is critical with this engine configuration. I'm sure the answers to my questions are all a forum search away. Oh the hook is set... Thanks again!

Thanks wemtd and Coffee Break. I'm in Santa Monica and sometimes head up to the coffe and car's at the la Canada movie theater parking lot.

Hi, new to the forum as a result of being stricken with a NEED to own one of these cars. I've spent years driving various sports cars, always scheming on how I could further distill each car to it's most elemental form, meaning less stuff between me and the experience of driving the car. Then I realized that the Lotus 7 design is exactly that. So I've spent the past few days obsessing on this car which has led to a bit of confusion that I was hoping to get clarity on here. When considering modern variants of the Lotus 7 here in North America I keep running across three...Caterham USA, Super 7 Cars, which seems to be Caterham Canada and Birkin. I'm sure there are others but these seems to more common, though common is a word that doesn't quite feel right describing any aspect of these cars. So from what I gather Super 7 Cars is licensed by Caterham so are they the same Caterham cars as Caterham U.S. minus the engine and transmission? I see that Super 7 offers the Hyabusa engine option as well as a Cosworth Duratec option while Caterham U.S. offers modified Duratecs. So does this mean that the "Caterham' part of the car is pretty much everything minus the engine and transmission? Apologies if I'm getting this wrong but if correct then the Cnadaian and U.S. rollers are essentially the same Caterham car. Then there's the Birkin variant which seems to be it's own company creating it's own version of the Lotus 7 design that has nothing to do directly with Caterham correct? Thanks in advance for any help.