Caterham 170 experience

TL;DR : Fiery, but cold After a 35°C kind of day with equally enjoyable conditions working from home in the attic, an evening drive felt quite appropriate.  With a former colleague just arrived in Liège to work here for a year, I thought we could take the Caterham to the Ardenne and grab a drink. The trip started with us driving in circles through a maze of roadworks. It was basically impossible to go South without resorting to driving on the highway. As I had removed the side screens for maximum effect, it would have been no fun at all.  That's how I drove east with the idea of having our drink in Spa. Along the way, we were able to see the wildfire of the High Fens, that began on that afternoon. We stopped once or twice to take some pictures. After a beer in Spa, we continued our way to the East, again guided by roadworks that blocked the roads I know best. Up top, the smell of wood fire. It was getting cold as well, and we were only wearing shorts and t-shirts. I pulled th...

TL;DR rinse and repeat Back again to the Vosges, this time with my Caterham. With some gentle but firm pressure on the paint shop, I managed to have my new bonnet ready in the morning of the day we were leaving for the Vosges. I got the car back first thing in the morning myself, commando-style and brought it to House of Speed with the bonnet attached with painter's tape. I told them I'd be back at 16:30 and I needed it to be ready by that time. Pushy but fair : it had been nearly 5 months that the car was out of service and all that was left to do was to rivet the 4 hooks and fit the lateral grilles on the bonnet. I also asked the oil the be changed, for peace of mind. I went back home for about an hour and prepared the car while the missus got the kids back from school only to bring them to my mum's. We finally left at around 18:00, had a brief stop for a snack just after entering France, and finally reached our friend's just before 23:00. Basically the n...

  Fig.1 :   banana for scale TL;DR Trekking gear, caring about volume 🦌 After missing most of Summer driving opportunities, my intent is to make for it in September one way or another. The vision of a Seven at a campsite always tickled my fancy. Especially since our yearly holidays are nothing less than 3 weeks under a tent. Roughly speaking, I've probably slept for year in a tent since 2000. That began as a scout leader, followed by holidays with various groups of friends and nowadays as a family of four.  In those instances volume and weight are no concern, and even a classic Mini Cooper could store plenty for two people. 🏎️ Going camping with a Seven is really an other game, as 120 liters in the boot is all we have. There is virtually no space in the cabin at all. Assuming the car jack and lever would be relocated to the engine bay, the full boot area could be available for camping equipment. Clothes and luggage would go in the " Boot bag " I got from Soft Bi...

TL;DR Nürburgring part deux February 24th marks the anniversary of the first year of ownership. Probably 500 hours spent driving, for a total just above 25 000 km. As far as I know, that's the Caterham 170 with the highest mileage and the most performant engine (to date). The blog now contains 95 posts, that's 300 pages in print form. To celebrate and make the most of a nice warm week-end, we went through all of the best places nearby : Northeastern part of the Belgian Ardenne on Saturday afternoon then the Vesdre valley and East Cantons down to Visé in the evening. On Sunday, the High Fens, Eifel area, Rursee then down to Nürburgring. That's again 500 km and 10 hours in the car over a single week-end.  A good opportunity to get accustomed to the limited slip differential fitted two weeks prior. The Quaife ATB is a good match for the new ECU and stage 3 turbo, the setup is much more cohesive. Gone is the rodeo-like experience of the last month. In a word : resolute - you...

  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 agr...

TL;DR if you order those, ask for a 59mm centre bore I had been eyeing those since probably April (2024), and my friend J. ordered a set around that time. As for his, I would have seen them black with a polished rim on my car. That specific " Billet Ultralite " model is a three piece billet alloy wheel that promised some serious weight saving close to 2kg per wheel. Plot twist, in the 14" size they actually offer no improvement compared to the stock 14" Caterham Juno wheels. They are just on par with them (10.25kg with tyre), which is actually not bad at all as you wouldn't want to add weight to the lightest Caterham ever produced. Their design looked original but I since stumbled upon the WESMO by BBS wheels, that look very similar. While they are dedicated to the Caterham, there is no suitable size for the 170. Image Wheels also scratch that itch of willing to own a set of bespoke MB Racing Wheels as seen on race Minis. Sadly MB does not seem...