Caterham Super Seven 1600

So I've never liked the standard carpets that Caterham supply, the material is not very nice at all. When I spec'd my car I told them to remove the rear panel carpet, they also didn't fit carpet to the sides of the boot (just the boot floor one). I job I've wanted to do for a while is completely line the boot with a much better padded vinyl. So I finally ordered this from Amazon . It's a nice diamond stitch vinyl with a foam backing that will protect the skins of the car and also reduce noise from things knocking around in the boot. I ordered 2m x 1.3m which was plenty. I started by removing the old boot floor carpet and using that as a template to cut the new vinyl. I removed the screws from the filler pipe cover to gain access. Even though a lot of the edges were cut with scissors, the edge fit was fine. I then spent a while cutting all of the sections necessary to fill the side panelling. For these I used professional velcro to attach them to the sides, so they a...

With the weather finally picking up after a very rainy and generally horrible winter I've got the car out of the lockup and back on the drive way. I've done a couple of drives already. A meet up in town in March. And also a trip up to Morecambe to see the lovely Jennifer. That's a proper 6 hour drive from London ! With the great weather this week I did a trip to Eastwell Manor, one of my favourite spa break hotels. I also did a little job on the car that I've been meaning to do for a while. I ordered a set of replacement fuses that are known as Glow Fuses. Basically if they blow then a small LED lights up to indicate the failure. This is a great improvement as you can visually see which fuse has blown, rather than having to start testing them all. I got these from BRT Motorsport in the UK. Note that my car is an EU spec vehicle based on the 275. The fuses are as per this table. Looking forward to a big summer drive. Off to Italy and back in June !

So it's the end of December but they still haven't started gritting the roads in London. It's a little chilly, but did a tour around Chelsea, Westminster and St Pauls this morning. Was warmer in the car than outside ! Let's see how long the roads are in good condition..

The OEM rear view mirror is a cheap plastic one which is also very large. In a standard chassis car it obstructs your view out of the windscreen. So I decided to replace it with a smaller, chrome unit. I ordered this from Holden parts . It's quite a bit smaller than the original, which is great ! The only problem is that the base arm is made of a flexible plastic. When I tested it on a drive the mirror constantly vibrated and was completely unusable. So, I purchased another cheap plastic mirror from Amazon which has a solid metal base. I used the base arm from this with the chrome mirror and now it works fine. I think it looks much better than the original and I get more view on the left side of the windscreen.

Well it's been a very busy summer with excellent weather, so here's an update of what we've been up to. First off was the Bicester Heritage event with the Caterham and Lotus 7 Club. A great turn out with around 150 cars and lots of other clubs present. Got to see the new Horse-powered Academy car as well. Then there was a trip to Eastwell Manor, always lovely. And a trip down to Goodwood with my Super Seven 1600 London twin. With the great weather in August I did another trip to Portmeirion, such an amazing place ! In September we did a meet up with the Essex group, first time in a while. And went to Caffeine & Machine in Bedford with the Central London group. And finally there was the annual Historic Lotus event at the Malcolm Ricketts workshop. What a summer ! Car has been great apart from occasional grumpy behaviour from the engine. It showed an O2 sensor warning at one point, so I replaced the Lambda sensor on the exhaust. Then did another trip up to Morecambe and i...

Last weekend was the official international meeting of the Caterham and Lotus Seven Club, held at the historic aerodrome centre Duxford. As it was forecast to be super warm I left early from London and reached Duxford around 7am.  Having breakfast at the local McDonalds I met a couple of the marshals from the club.  I still had an hour and half till the gates opened so they recommended headed down the road to meet up with the Bedfordshire group. They had just done an early morning blat, arriving at a cafe. The Bedfordshire AR has a very interesting car with lots of custom features like this LED front grill. He also has a custom speaker setup installed into the roll cage. Amazing ! After chatting to some of the group I headed off to meet up with Owen who was driving up from Central London. Managed to catch up with him just before the Duxford entrance, which was good timing. His car is the Duratec version of mine, the Super Seven 2000. It's the original press demonstrator vehicl...

It's been very warm in South-East England in June, over 30 degrees some of the time. So I've been heading out of London to cooler parts of the country to escape the heat. First up was a trip to Morecambe. I've done the trip a few times before, my route is the A1 up to Wetherby and then across the moors to Morecambe. It's a nice drive with excellent scenery. I stay at the Midland Hotel, an art-deco place on the promenade. There are great views across the bay. And got a room overlooking the car! Then the following week I did a trip to Bath, Somerset. I stayed on campus, where I did my undergrad. Got to look around town. Bath is great in the summer.

After 3 years with the OEM sidescreen mirrors enough was enough. We've gone for the Uber Niche Lifeline mirrors and adaptors. I made the original mirrors usable by adding convex glass and securing the base units. But after a while the base units started to move, and the mirrors look rubbish anyway. So I finally decided on the Uber Niche Lifeline package. This is the Lifeline racing mirror attached to a 3D-printed bracket by Uber Niche. The mirror also has adjustments to the base fixing. The pivot allows you to accurately align the bracket to the existing sidescreen holes. The only issue I had is that you need to remove the inner part of the base and fit that first before trying to secure the mirror. These mirror work really well, and look great on the car !

As the footwells get proper toasty in the summer, I decided to fit some further insulation to try and reduce the temperatures in the driver side where the exhaust manifold is very close. The lower part of the footwell already has aluminium foil sheeting that extends around the gearbox area, but the pedal box cover is not treated. So I order a 24inch by 12inch sheet of Reflect A Gold from Demon Tweeks . This sheet was £46, it's not cheap ! Fitting was straightforward, with some attention to the edges and cutting out the top name plate. I also put some on the front leading face of the pedal box assembly. Initial test run definitely felt like it was cooler in the footwell, I'll have to do further warm weather tests to confirm.

So we're coming up to 3 years old, so it's time for a service and an MOT ! I decided to check out GP Sevens in Kent as it's closer than going to HWM. From Romford it's just a 45 minute drive (with no traffic). It's very much out in the sticks, so you need to get a lift back and there. Apart from that it was all good. Dropped it off in the morning, and picked it up in the afternoon. It was just an oil change service and checkup, with no issues reported.  On the way home I picked up new spark plugs from Caterham Dartford. The service schedule is to change the plugs every 2 years, but I like to do it every year. I got the Sigma Iridium spark plugs that they use in the race cars. They are a better quality than the standard ones, and are pre-gapped. All running fine and trying to make the most of the fantastic May weather !

Last weekend was the first big trip of the summer, the Wight Blat 2025. This is an annual club trip to the Isle of Wight, organised by Simon and Alex. The plan was to stay at the very nice Luccombe Hall Hotel in Shanklin for a couple of nights and drive around the island to various locations. I started off at 9:30am from Romford, and met up with Essex legend Debbie in her 1985 X-flow at Brentwood. We then headed down to Crawley and stopped at Pease Pottage services, before driving to Portsmouth to get the ferry over to the Island. It's quite fun getting on boat in a Caterham ! The ferry was super quick, just 20 mins to get to Fishbourne. Then it was a half-hour drive to the Luccombe Hall. After unpacking we did a short walk down Shanklin Chime to the beach, before dinner at the hotel. We had a proper itinerary for Saturday. First stop was the Military Museum. Excellent Auto Sport 50th Anniversary model, with factory CD player ! Then I followed another car to the West coast and down...