Visiting the Caterham factory - part 2 : The whole story

 

TL;DR if you're reading this, just book a tour already

All began with a phone call from House of Speed on December 7th. There was a Caterham Factory tour happening on December 18th and I was invited. My first reply was that I intented to come to the garage in the morning to talk about the diff upgrade anyway, and would be there after breakfast.

The fact of the matter is that my enthusiastic involvement in anything Caterham-related in Belgium this year was not unnoticed, and the 23 000km driven over 6 or 7 months was quite something too. More than just being invited to visit the factory, I was asked to act as some kind of ambassador for the garage too. A role that I somehow de-facto played in a few instances already. Geography helping a lot as their candy shop is located right in between my parent's (where the car is stored during the week), and home.

 

I highlighted my fear of turning a hobby into a chore as with my prior experience at the local astronomy club, and we agreed that federating people for 3 or 4 "cars and coffee" a year would be nice.

Anyway, back to the visit. It happened that I already missed the opportunity to go to Dartford early in November with the Belgian branch of the Caterham & Lotus Seven Club .  We were in France with the family that week and visited the Motor museum of the 24h of Le Mans on our way from Futuroscope to Normandy.

 

The event was first and foremost centered around the imminent delivery of the 3 Caterham 485 CSR Final Edition destined to HoS and their customers. The party would consist in 4 people : 2 future owners of the 485 CSR, the dedicated Seven specialist from the garage, and me. All we needed was meeting at HoS on Dec 18th 6am. And better not forget our passports (the gift of Brexit strikes again). Three of us got our new passport right on time.

I woke up at 5am and met my friend Ludo (from HoS) as planned, then joined the two other customers at a car pool area near Brussels. We reached Calais on time for the crossing via the Eurotunnel. Despite the dense traffic in UK, we reached Dartford at 11:15, where we were expected at 11:30. Perfect.

In the lobby we could take a close look at the 2013 Frankfurt Auto Show "165" demonstrator while each of us checked-in with the fully automated system. We were mostly done when Bob Laishley (the CEO) came down the stairs to welcome us before leaving us in the expert hands of Justin, who would be our host for the day. 

We went upstairs to "Paddock Hill" -the main conference room-, where we shook hands, introduced ourselves to Justin and Bob, had coffee, tea and cake for about half an hour. Their interest in our experiences and stories was genuine, they are very passionate people who really want to know what we expect from our cars, and what we do or intent to do with them. 

The actual tour began with "The Terrace" where the heroes are on display. Jump to part 1 for the details. Time stamps of the photographs show we've spent between 10 and 15 minutes up there.

Then down "Tyre Alley" where sets of mounted wheels are ready to be fitted, and also where the tyres are actually fitted to the rims like they would be at your local tyre shop.

We were shown the inventory of tubs, the bare chassis with just their raw aluminium skin, as they come from the other Caterham workshop. At that point you can just tell a S3 from a SV chassis, and idenfity with the presence or lack of differential brackets if it's a Ford or Suzuki drivetrain that will be used.

The first step of the assembly, which is about the only part akin to an assembly line, is the selection and alignement of a nosecone and scuttle, that are paired with each chassis once and for all. After that the chassis are brought to an area dedicated to the cutting of the exhaust hole on the side skin using appropriate templates. The person in charge of that operation is also the one in charge of applying the VIN number to the frame, which is the noisiest thing in the hall. They are lucky that it might happen maybe twice a day on average

 

The tubs are then pushed to the painting area, where they are prepared and masked before entering the paint booth. About any colour can be prepared by the team, there is no limit to what can be done. After painting, finishing and polishing take about a day, ensuring a top notch result.

All those first operations take about 4 days. Now time for the actual assembly in one of the 31 workshop-booths, where one single mechanic will build the car. The chassis is provided with 2 trolleys of parts that have been prepared beforehand in the inventory area upstairs. It takes about 2 weeks to assemble a car.

In those booths, cars were in various stages of assembly. In one of them was the almost ready blue 485 CSR FE for one of the member of our little group. A good opportunity for him to sit in a SV chassis for the first time, in his own future car no less. It happened that the mechanic in charge also built the grey 485 CSR FE for the other customer. We all chatted happily for a while, shot some great pictures too. We also took a close look to the HoS purple CSR, a real beauty -it was sold later that week-. That first part of the workshop tour took about 50 minutes.

 

We then moved to the brand new delivery area, which only served as a backdrop for this presentation of the CSR 20 a few weeks ago. There, a covered car was waiting his future happy owner. And happy he was. It was quite the privilege for one of us to have the car builder himself hand the keys to the 485 CSR FE number 1/25 under the amused eyes of the CEO. Gift of Brexit again, it took 3 years for him to get his 485. The first one was actually built but couldn't be delivered, and has since been used as a test-platform for various R&D projects -we might or might not have spotted it in the forbidden area, who could really know-.

After those brilliant 10 minutes, time for an hour of lunch and chat with Bob and Justin. The mechanic who built the 2 CSR also joined us. 

 

Conversations went from the intent for Caterham to organize or be closely involved in some meetings/events, to the future of the automobile as a concept. As they are both people of (japanese) culture, a parallel with the futuristic éX-Driver anime was highlighted (one of the 3 heroes drive a yellow Caterham JPE) : in the future people won't drive anymore, and just be passenger of automated taxis. Driving will become the future horseback riding. You will still be able to do it as a hobby if you please, but most won't care that they have no clue how to do it.
We also talked about the new engine to be found soon, as they are currently using a finite inventory of Ford Duratec that are stored safely somewhere secret.

The EV Seven was a proof of concept that proved that all the specifications could be met with current technologies. It would be impossible to put on the market as it is (way to expensive) but demonstrated that it can be used on track days where it's racing for 20 minutes, charging for 15 minutes, than racing again for another 20. If I'm not mistaken it's around 80kg heavier than an ICE version.

 

After lunch, we continued the tour of the workshop for the better part of an hour, of which about 20 minutes at the engine shop. I somehow never fully comprehended that they have a proper racing engine workshop down there. I knew that the oil pans had to be replaced by custom low profiles ones, but this is actually just a very small step in the preparation. Engines are stripped down, rods and pistons are upgraded before the blocks are closed and mated to a gearbox. I also had to opportunity to meet Dan, who built my car 2 years ago. A very nice and down-to-earth man, busy preparing a race-spec'ed Super Seven 600 destined to some father and son racing in Portugal.

After assembly, a few "assembly line" steps consist in fitting the weather gear and poppers, then go through final "scrutineering".

Visiting the spare parts shop was an opportunity for Ludo to follow-up on some orders for the garage, and for me to pick-up my Quaife LSD in person.

We finished the visit by going upstairs to the gift shop and lounge area. A large window is open to the main hall, the side wall is decorated with shelves where some Seven books and collectibles are exposed. In a corner, 3 seats showcase different available trims, and small shelves hold paint swatches in the form of actual aluminium panels with bonnet louvers. A sitting area with a table is available as a conference room for the teams, and served recently to host a podcast (that is worth your time).The gift shop area is nice too, we all got some merch for us or our kids.

Our hosts were really intersted in our feedback from the experience, as they feared that we would have seen so many pictures and Youtube videos already that the visit could be disappointing. The truth is that you certainly lose some "wow" factor, but the quality of the talks, all the small details and secrets revealed, the openness for questions and feedback are invaluable.

It was really an honor to meet all of them, they are very experienced and knowledgeable. The time they dedicated to us was very precious. We have really seen where the magic happens, we know their ambitions, their struggles (in supply mostly), how they see the future. It was also a real treat to discover that Justin considers the 160/170 as his babies, that he owns and races a 170 in Japan.

 

We left about 30min later than planned, and drove back to Eurotunnel LeShuttle™ (sic) with reasonable traffic but it was getting dark and started raining. As we came in a bit late we missed the planned crossing, but the automated check-in just booked us for a next train as nothing had happened. 

On the way we stopped at the carpool area then reached House of Speed at 11pm, as originally planned. Thanks again for the invitation to that incredible day !