Caterham 420 Cup review

Then there’s the gearbox. It works simply enough: from neutral you just pull back to go up a gear and push forward to descend. Reverse is accessed by selecting neutral, lifting a collar and pushing forward. At parking speeds each engagement is announced with a satisfyingly mechanical clunk or clank unless the gear refuses to engage – which is quite common – when trying to reach first or reverse; in which case you have to release the lever, pump the clutch once and try again, which always works. But the shift is tiresomely heavy when manoeuvring.

Unsurprisingly, it gets better the faster you go. At normal road speeds it’s still preferable to use the clutch, but there’s no need at all during full load upshifts, nor is there any need to trouble your left foot going down the gearbox, so long as you’re braking hard and push through each shift with confidence. The engine itself is interesting only in its ability to generate quite impressive power from a given capacity. The old Kent-based pushrod motor in my 25-year-old Super Sprint is a far sweeter thing to listen to than this, no doubt thanks to the fat Webers hung off its side.

But the 420 Cup does provide a level of performance that would have seemed quite extraordinary not that long ago. However, if you’ve sampled the manic savagery of its supercharged sister, this will feel convincingly, appropriately rapid, but probably not much more.

The reason the car had sat outside for so long was that there was simply no point getting in and driving it. I live in a part of the world that teems with the tourist trade at this time of year and trying to evaluate such a car within its midst is an exercise of the purest futility, not to mention considerable frustration. So instead I waited for the weekend and set a very early alarm.

I wanted to play with the Bilsteins but the adjusters for the shocks at the back were out of reach inside the rear wheel arch, which I am told will not be the case when customers get their cars. They were set at their mid-point all round which I’d say was very slightly too stiff for undulating mountain roads, so I softened the fronts a couple of clicks and left it at that.

And on those roads and in those conditions, the 420 Cup was extraordinary. I have no doubt that in pure point to point speed, there are very few hypercars that could stay with it. It’s not just the grip from the Avons and race-related suspension, but the compact dimensions, the visibility, the traction and the fact that slides are so slight and well signalled you rarely even have to lift the throttle: just wind in the appropriate lock and keep your foot in. In a hypercar, you’d likely already be in crisis management, terrified of slewing onto the wrong side of the road, working hard to round it up with all thought of maintaining maximum forward motion no longer the remotest priority.

There was a moment, too, when the road threw a series of events at me, requiring a blur of foot and hand operations where I felt so totally at one with the car I started to laugh inside my Arai. Right there, right then, it was superb.

But it was outnumbered a thousand or more to one by other moments when I thought how much more fun I’d be having with a standard gearbox, much less grip so the limit could be more easily found, and without a large lump of glass fibre encasing my noggin. Because the truth is that even in the most optimal road conditions, the opportunities to experience what this car can really do are fleeting in the extreme. Whereas, and forgive me for banging on about it, I can have just as much of a slightly different kind of fun simply driving my Caterham into town.

And of course there is a reason for this: the 420 Cup is a track day car. And by that I don’t mean a car which is suitable for track days, but a car there seems little point in driving unless you’re on your way to, from or actually at a track day. And while I’ve not driven it on the track, I’ve driven enough Caterham road and racing cars on circuit to have a pretty shrewd idea that here, at last and at least, it would be fabulous. On the road, however, it is too flawed too often to make much sense to me.

Indeed the more I drove the 420 Cup, the more I wanted to be driving a standard 420 instead. Same engine, same power, sensible gearbox and full weather equipment as standard. And, wait for it, £19,000 cheaper. Which makes the Cup over half as expensive again as the 420. Now I know the Cup has that gearbox, uprated brakes, suspension, tyres and so on, but nothing that even comes close to bridging that gap. Truth is the stock 420 is a car I’d not only enjoy driving more because I could reach its limits more easily but, even more important than that, it’s a car I’d drive far more often.

None of which is to pour cold water on the 420 Cup, merely to advise that it’s a very particular beast for a very particular kind of use, the most narrowly defined Caterham I’ve driven that’s entitled to wear a number plate. If it’s pure on-track pace you want in a format that doesn’t require another car and a trailer to get it and you home again, it’s undoubtedly the best Caterham to date. For every other person and every other purpose, I’d advise looking elsewhere in the range.