Caterham’s Seven Deadly Sins

Lust. You’re not allowed to, really but it’s only a venial sin. A few Hail Maries, a couple of Glory Bes, a period of reflection with a back issue of Autosport and a promise not to do it again and you’ll probably be okay. It’s not like you’re having a quick one off the wrist over your favourite Vicky Butler-Henderson fantasy again, is it? No. So go on, have a quick lust. This is the new Caterham Seven Supersport. Orange, isn’t it? A bit stripey too.

Envy. You could envy the man behind the wheel. You wouldn’t wear such a silly hat or those particular dark glasses. All the same, you’re kidding yourself. You want to be there. It’s not that the car is so much different from all the other Sevens produced since Noah took his ARDS test, it’s just that it’s a little harder, a little more track-biased (if that’s possible) and you want that for yourself.

Gluttony. You can’t afford gluttony at all. The thing only weighs 520kg. You’re only a couple of pies away from completely ruining a lot of very careful work by Caterham’s engineers.

Greed. You don’t need to be very greedy. £19,950 isn’t that much to spend, surely? It’s about the same as a mid-spec Focus, after all. At that price you have to assemble it yourself but it’s worth it to save a few quid.

Sloth. If you’re slothful, you can have it fully built for £22,950. You can’t be too slothful, though. This one will go from 0-60mph in 4.9 seconds and is flat out at 120mph. Its get up and go is gotten from a Caterham-tuned Ford 1.6 litre engine which produces 140bhp. Not slothful at all.

Wrath. Caterham’s engineers have given the Supersport the same suspension settings as a track car which means it might be a bit stiff for the road. That might wind you up a bit. You might also get fed up picking bees out of your teeth. It has no windscreen as standard. It also has those four-point race harnesses which can be a real faff climbing into and out of.

Pride. You could be proud of yourself, sat in the race seats even in your silly harnesses. It’s a nice piece of kit, this Supersport. It has all the motorsport bits you might like, including a limited slip diff, 13″ Avon CR500 track tyres, those seats and silly harnesses and what Caterham calls a “track biased dash” which basically means it has some change up lights built into it.

I like the Supersport but I’m becoming confused by the Caterham Seven range. I think the Supersport is a road-registered version of the Academy racing cars but I can’t be exactly certain. The Roadsport and Superlight are also available and the Supersport seems to be a mixture of these. I’ll need to sit down and have a good solid think about it for a bit longer yet. If you were being harsh, you could with some justification accuse Caterham of being a little slothful themselves. It may be just one more variation on the Seven theme but that’s still one more variation on the most fun you can have when wearing a bobble hat and goggles.