The rich and varied world of the Caterham Seven. Though it’s essentially based around one car, Caterham’s line-up has kept expanding to include headline-grabbers like the supercar-beating 620R or the middle-ground 420. The 310 has won acclaim for being one of the more approachable cars in the Seven range, too.
There’s now a new entry point to the range – the Seven 170. Acting as a replacement for the 160, it aims to provide a fun, low-cost door into the Caterham world – but what is it like? We’ve been finding out.
Distinctive Caterham looks aside, the 170 has quite a number of differences compared with the rest of the range. It’s got a turbocharged Suzuki-sourced engine, for one – more on that later – which really does transform the whole experience.
Much like the rest of the Seven range, however, you can now specify it in either road-going ‘S’ or track-focused ‘R’ layouts – the former of which we’ve got here – while you’ve got the option of either having it built for you at Caterham’s factory for a fee or, if you’re handy with the spanners, you can build it from the comfort of your own home.