The Caterham 21 was made by Caterham Cars to celebrate 21 years of their venerable 7 sportscar. The plan was simple: put a traditional British sportscar body, similar to those made in the 1950s and 60s, atop the mechanical underpinnings of the Seven.
At a time when the Seven was showing its age, the 21 would have made a more livable, handsome and comfortable Seven. This seemed like a guaranteed recipe for success, but it just didn’t work out.
Unfortunately, the added weight of a body meant the 21 was slower, less dynamically engaging and it looked a bit off. What didn’t help, was that it was on sale at the same time as when the Lotus Elise, the perennial touchstone of sportscardom, was at the height of its influence. So, the 21 flopped, and the idea was scrapped.
But now it’s 2021, ding-dong the Elise is dead. With modern technology, the Caterham 21 actually seems like a genuine possibility again, especially when car enthusiasts are desperately scrabbling for the last analogue driving experience out of Saigon, shortly before our bizarre little world implodes in a cacophony of legislative bombshells, and electric whirring.
Caterham needn’t cease making the 7, not at all. People who want a Caterham 7, will buy a Caterham 7, but to some people, Sevens – despite getting more powerful and sophisticated – have struggled to justify their price tags particularly when they are sometimes perceived as looking like sheet metal coffins with four wheels.
The 21 needs a spaceframe body, and the rest works itself all out. Say, a new 21 is released, looks stylish, drives well and does well in the press – this could drive customers who may have previously been unwilling to accept the trad 7’s old-school looks to Caterham’s door. It could even be made into a coupe in today’s world of CAD and lightweight componentry.
Just imagine a 21 with the 310bhp supercharged 2 Litre Ford Duratec engine from the 620R. It’d probably be the fastest sportscar on sale, and if the interior was relatively decent, Lotus would be in serious trouble, and Porsche’s Cayman GT4 would even start to sweat.
A new 21 might also prevent Caterhams from being ordered with the ‘for the larger gent’, SV body style, which, no matter which way we try and swing it, look bad. But a larger, more comfortable and accommodating 21 chassis and cockpit may allow a completely separate Caterham model to succeed.
And a new 21 might let Caterham compete in non-spec series racing, eh? Sneak it under the radar, you see. Those Germans at ADAC will never know what hit them, until they do – and Caterham is banned from the VLN again, the spoilsports. But it would still be fun while it lasted.
Crack on!
Kerbside 