Caterham Shows Aero Seven, Talks About Small Cars
Caterham’s showing off the “Aero Seven” concept, its latest attempt to comprehensively update the idea of the Seven for the next generation of drivers. (Their last attempt, the Caterham 21, was not well received and ended up being discontinued.) In addition to showing this very polished and very modern-looking car, Caterham’s co-founder Tony Fernandes discussed some future product that falls well outside the company’s traditional mission.
The Joint Venture with Renault to produce an all-new sportscar for both the Alpine and Caterham brands demonstrates our clear intent on doing this right, doing it sensibly, but above all, doing it the Caterham way… And because we’re a flat company, we’re a quicker company. When we say we’re going to do things internally, we do them. We don’t procrastinate and lose momentum through legions of middle-management decision makers, we just do it… It has been a British institution for the last 40 years, and automotive secret in many ways, but in the very near future, the Caterham name will sit proudly on crossovers, city cars as well as a range of sportscars for everyone.
Here at TTAC, we don’t care if Caterham rebadges the freakin’ GMT360 if it helps them stay in business. However, we can’t help but think of another company that claimed it needed to make trucks in order to make sports cars… and then decided it would rather make more trucks than build a small sports car.
More by Jack Baruth
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The Porsche Pajun link is actually for a sedan, not a truck. In any case, I personally do like the modern take on the Seven. I don't expect that Caterham will drop the "classic" version but this one should bring them new customers who are looking for something a little bit more modern.
That baby Boxster was just a bad idea Jack. The Boxster is already miniature compared to its competition. And in base form it's already pretty decontented. There's no way they could make it smaller without compromising it. It would be like the F-type vs the XK. A V8 F-Type is like 100lb less than the much larger, more practical, not much worse performing/driving or expensive XK. Plus you know how much new platforms cost... no way they could get the volume out of a one off tiny low profit sports car to rationalize making it, unless they just threw caution to the wind like they did with the Phaeton. Not to mention, you know how Porsche is with hierarchies... this thing would get neutered. The base Boxster is already weak; something even weaker would not stand a chance against the likes of the cheaper Miata or the faster Mustang in that 25-35K price bracket. It would be the 914 4 banger all over again. Just keep buying used Boxsters. I know when I can afford a used Cayman S I will definitely be looking at them.
If Tony Fernandes was a co-founder of Caterham, he would have been 9 at the time. That would be pretty impressive.
That's one beautiful Caterham !