Caterham Seven CSR Twenty review

When they were finished, the stiffness of the SV chassis had been doubled, the front spring/damper units moved inboard and an entirely new double wishbone rear suspension developed to replace the doughty old De Dion back end. Aerodynamically shaped front wings and some little winglets on the same nose cone used for the supercharged 620S complete the picture. That’s what all that moolah is really buying, plus the guarantee of being the most talked about Seven in any pub car park at the noggin ‘n’ natter of your local Seven club.

Then as now, CSRs are curious devices on first acquaintance, largely because they don’t fight back. The steering doesn’t wriggle about in your hands, they don’t fidget over bumps, you never look down and see your hands pointing in the other direction in some reflex reaction to the back being kicked out of line. A CSR just flies across whatever terrain you can throw at it with astonishing ease and precision. After which you shortly conclude that what all the surgery has really achieved is to give the Seven a sense of humour bypass.

So you need to go and drive it again. And again. Only then will you realise the fun is still there, but it’s a different kind. This is not the Caterham for splitting your face into a ridiculous grin, to have you belly-laughing your way from point to point. It’s about that quiet smile of profound satisfaction, the inner warmth that spreads through your body as you marvel that something that looks as old fashioned and basic as this turns out to be so astonishingly capable. Truly, it is a wondrous thing to behold, and as a long distance tourer, in a different class of any other Seven of the last two-thirds of a century.

But actually? If I wanted a car with these kinds of capabilities I’d buy an Elise (not coincidentally also developed with the help of Miles). Perversely or otherwise, I want all the histrionics that come with De Dion cars because they are integral to, even indivisible from the character of the Seven. At least to me. The CSR is as impressive today as it was when I first drove one at Oulton Park 20 years ago, but the price is too high and the rewards, though palpable, meaningful and profoundly impressive, take away something that should be innate to the soul of the Seven. I’ll stay with the standard car, thanks.

Photography by Malcolm Griffiths

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