Growing up in Caterham, Surrey, at house number seven, I felt a strong connection to the local company that once lined up on the Formula One grid. It was exciting peering into the nearby Caterham Cars showroom (now a retirement home), but driving a Seven 360R – collected from Caterham’s new factory in Dartford – back to its home town was even more so. “You get used to it,” I reassured passengers struggling with the four-point harness belts and composite bucket seats fitted to this car as part of the track-focused ‘R’ pack.
Compared to the more road-friendly Seven 360S, it adds a lightweight flywheel, limited-slip differential and firmer suspension. The last of which wasn’t ideally suited to the hilly roads surrounding Caterham. The wider Seven ‘SV’ body and lowered floor, also optioned here, were very much welcomed by my 6ft 5in passenger, though.
Even in this guise, the Caterham’s cabin is still a snug fit. Inside, the car is incredibly sparse, with no new-fangled touchscreens, just a row of toggle switches and five dials – two of which didn’t fancy doing their job by the end of the week. One of the faulty dials was the speedometer, but no matter: straight-line speed feels lower down on Caterham’s priority list than lateral G-forces.
This car is all about the corners. Shifting through the satisfying clunks of the five-speed gearbox , then hitting the redline at 7,500rpm, the sense of speed is abundant. Yet often the gap to the family hatchback in .