Never look back. Or so I am told. Keep your eyes fixed firmly on the future. ‘The best car I ever made is the one I have not made yet,’ or so Enzo Ferrari used to say. But I’m not Enzo. I am at times a hopeless sentimentalist. And ever since I saw one burble past me on some country road when I was a kid, I always wanted a Caterham. Actually back then it was probably a Lotus, but no matter.
I wanted one until aged 19 and, briefly wealthy by usual broke teenager standards, I bought one. It was a 1700 Super Sprint which I reversed into a bank at Goodwood on my first ever track day because I didn’t know how to drive, but my mates were standing in the pits thinking I did. An unedifying combination. My first ever application of opposite lock resulting from a bootful of throttle at the exit of the chicane soon proved it was I and not they who was correct. I really didn’t know how to drive. And that was the end of the Super Sprint. Or at least that one.
