What a good way to recognise 50 years of making fast cars than to build a small car with supercar performance? That is what Caterham has done, after building the Caterham Sevens, based on the Lotus Seven for 50 years.
The Caterham X330 is based on the Caterham CSR sports car, but is powered by a supercharged Ford 2.3 liter engine developing 330 bhp. Since the car weighs only 1,210 lb – this is the target weight for the Caparo 3.5 liter trackday supercar, by the way – the power-to-weight ratio is competitive with exotic cars at 610 bhp per tonne. Well, 540 bhp per tonne if you include the driver, which is a good idea.
As quick as a Pagani to 60 mph
You need something like a Pagani, or Koenigsegg exotic car to do better than that. A high power-to-weight ratio results in very quick, which is why your ordinary cars are so slow – they are too heavy.
Caterhams have always been very light because they stuck to the basic concepts of Colin Chapman back in the 1950s. The current range are much different from the originals, although the lower-powered versions retain the original Lotus front suspension with a anti-roll bar acting as a suspension link.
The X330 is a lightweight version of the Caterham Superlight 500, which are light in weight, have good supension and steering and are street legal. With that massive power-to-weight ratio, the X330 should be good for a 0-60 mph time of under 3.5 seconds, so long as the driver can get the power on the road smoothly to start off. Times from 40-70 mph should be staggering.
Recently, several new companies have decided that open-wheeled sports cars have a big future including KTM in Austria. Clearly, the trend is not so much to comfortable sports cars like the Audi TT and Nissan Z370, but to distinct types of sports cars.
