Slonie

I made a new post for the story of Caterham at Car Week, here. As for my own car, well I really wanted to bring it to Monterey and that would have resulted in me spamming this thread for a whole week, but it wasn't meant to be. A continuing electrical issue* (that needs its own thread), and an aborted topside oil change** kept me from being road-ready, and the threat of being out in the sun all day every day and out after dark in a car with marginal night flying abilities caused me to chicken out. So no pictures of my 7 for now! *everything works except for my front turn signals when my headlights are on **turns out my topside extractor could only get about 2qts out, but I have anxiety over a possibly-stripped drain plug from the last oil change so I thought I'd delay the potential discovery of that by not undoing it right ahead of doing hundreds of miles of driving away from home...

So at Monterey Car Week, Caterham had a presence at the Bonhams Laguna Seca Auction. They had two representatives of the company (Christian and I think Ben), and I got to chat with them for a bit. They also brought two of the Miami Edition Sevens, which were in the tent and available for purchase (although not—as I had previously believe—on auction, I believe they are on consignment. Yours for $100-110k). Anyhow, in addition to a good talk with Christian, I got to looking at the souvenir program for the races, which had a previously unreported story on how the Miami Editions came to be. They were actually built for the Driver's Parade, with one car per team (and one backup). However, storms forced the start time of the race up by a few hours and the driver's parade was cancelled. Thus, they never got their moment in the sun. In any case, this explains why some of the hoods have team names on the bonnet! Additionally, Caterham had their West Coast demonstrator car out and about, a Seven R (also SV, like the two Miami Editions) Noting that it came from Hillbank, and that it has the new USA-specification "Seven R" [no number] designation. Plus the painted rollbar and headlamps, though no 620R-style nosecone. I saw it three times over the week, first at the auction, then out on the road, and finally right in front of me as I pulled into the track on Saturday. I had a lot of explaining to do to the global head of sales as to why I didn't have my Seven with me

Speak of the devil, I get back home and this is in my YouTube recommendations. Of course I immediately recognize from the thumbnail that it's going to be about the Proxes Sport R. I'm only a few minutes into it so I don't know how much they compare to say, other contemporary tires, but the R888R is an old design too

Parked at Laguna Seca and... Well, this is awkward... (more on this later though — Caterham UK had a legitimate presence at Monterey Car Week, as far as I know that's the first time!)

As I was watching this one... It seems they may have slowly been sneaking out — there are some sizes listed as available now at Tire Rack (as small as 15"), but the 13" is still MIA (and I did email trackdaytires.com and they said they had no idea when the 13s would come). Strangely though, for a tire that's supposedly out, I haven't found a single review or impression on it yet (on tirerack or otherwise). So we're still waiting to see if this is a step up down or sideways from the R888R for the street.

It's a no-reserve auction so we'll find out for sure... As for the color, Vov and I will joist have to agree to disagree

Killer spec on the BaT car...

Okay I've gotta ask, what's in the wallet? Also, on a more serious note, what's the title situation on this car? Road-registered?

I don't have firsthand experience with them, but I have occasionally seen people refer to https://www.classiccarleds.co.uk for applications like this. They've got 1157s (in red, as well as other options), although you'd have to ask them about the resistor...

Comments are on it! Off-topic but— I was really interested in the brochure pictured in their auction, even though it has nothing to do with the car. It does have to do with this thread though:

55-years owned! Seller says they think it's on original tires

Wow! I would spend so much time poring over a Donkervoort from their era of "still looks like a 7" just to see how they did things. Gotta be a real rare one in the US, did you find out when they imported it?

Is the car you purchased by any chance, the one Josh at RMC was selling? If so, have you told him about your situation? He might be able to provide more documentation. If not, then sorry I don't have anything to help you with, but I am sorry you're going through it.

I hear you. And this is how I end up with $1500 worth of Stack gauges eventually 😆 (I’m pretty sure their digital dash is actually cheaper than buying all those gauges separately) Actually, I’d probably buy their fuel gauge tomorrow if it would actually give an accurate reading for these cars (iirc it’s programmable in some way so it actually might be as good as it gets for Caterham’s weird fuel level sender but I haven’t researched it deeply)

This is really cool to hear that you're still at it! I think I missed this thread back in 2022 so I'm following with great interest now.

Sure thing. The caveat is I only have personal experience with a specific model of water temp gauge and not their oil pressure gauges, but it sold me on the concept (even though their reputation speaks pretty well itself, right?). My experience is that it was way more accurate than the Caterham (Smiths/Carabont) original. Their pro stepper motor gauge would be this one: https://www.autometer.com/oil-press-pro-stepper-motor-52mm-blk-0-100-psi-1-8-nptf-male.html Note that I don't know what the fitting is for our cars so a different sender may be required than the one I linked to. I actually ordered my water temp gauge from the "Pro Control" line which has extra features like peak/alarm. The only special feature I use is that the color of illumination is programmable so you can have it function as a warning light (or drive an external warning light!) based on specified ranges. On my water temp gauge it illuminates green when it's under a certain range, white for normal, and red when it's over 100C. Incidentally, that was the default programming so I didn't have to learn how to actually program it (it's done via those buttons on the face, apparently) https://www.autometer.com/oil-press-pro-control-52mm-blk-0-100-psi-1-8-nptf-male.html The final warning, at least with the pro control (may be less of an issue with the regular ones), is that the LED illumination is incredibly bright and downright distracting at night. You can install a resistor inline with it or buy their dimmer box to fix this, but I haven't done so. Maybe after I spend a grand on the rest of the gauges! Looks like this in-situ. I think the non-Pro-Control models probably have white printing and are readable with the lights off, the Pro Control needs illumination to be seen (but will illuminate while the car is non, regardless of your headlamp switch). Aesthetically, the more basic model does win.

If my stock one ever goes on the fritz I’m going to proceed directly to the Stack website and get a matching (electronic stepper motor) gauge for the water temp gauge I bought after dissatisfaction with the OEM unit. I do like the idea of mechanical gauges in theory, but I figure one less place to potentially leak hot oil is probably good for me. If I was doing mechanical though, I’d look at Racetech who make a cool combined pressure/temperature unit l…

Prisoner for sale in WA: https://www.craigslist.org/view/d/orondo-caterham-super-prisoner-special/1F9GsATNFCqKw1SLBxGKP3

I know it's liable to draw a lot of comments from the purists, but I kinda love that bumper/light bar. Never seen one like it before. As you're a dune buggy owner I'm sure you feel right at home with it?

Congrats on the pickup! it's a good looking car. Like everyone else said, the first point is to replace those tires as ASAP (unless you can prove that they're new enough via date codes) Not to belabor the tire carrier point but mine is painted the body color (chassis from 2001). I wouldn't bother repainting it! Some people (not me) cut it off and plug it or make it removable in the case that they don't want to drive around with a spare. To each their own. Here's a tip— Download as many build manuals as you can, they're invaluable reference (along with both forum searches and build blogs from here and the UK). You can find them scattered around the web or probably all in the Files section of this site. Barring that, DM me with your email address and I'll send you my folder. For the nut and bolt torque check, I found the modern "Ikea" manual to be very helpful as it shows where each fastener is visually — However a word of warning, some torque specs have changed and will be different on your car (I can name the differential carrier bolts as one such example, if there are others I don't know of, it's too late for me anyway). Speaking of torque, check the banjo fittings for your brakes, because one of mine came loose (I had overlooked it during my nut and bolt check). And have fun!

I mean, how often can you find a pair of shoes that matches your car?

I think the post is in this FB group, request access and you should see it: Caterham 7s in the USA and Canada https://facebook.com/groups/739892829751305/

I really need to get around to experimenting with one of those. A few of the local folks have them and say it works great too. And most of them don't have a top.

Played around with SevenSense just now, and it passed my test for the differential carrier bolt specs (the test I failed by following the IKEA manual while working on my older car... The torque spec changed considerably between the two!). I really appreciate that it cites sources, a very important feature in allowing one to trust it. Very handy, thanks!

I like this idea—Honestly I've been thinking about this as I've been afraid to even ask for a shipping quote for a set of Advan A052s from the UK. The 13" size doesn't appear to be sold here. Nova ZZR/ZZS I'm not as worried about since presumably Roger Kraus Racing will have them eventually. I'm not really in a position to facilitate this though, perhaps one of the US Caterham dealers would be open to it?