Dirty weekend: Autoblog meets Caterham (Part II)

Read the second part of Autoblog's encounter with the iconic sports car...

Caterham's uncompromised approach certainly makes the Seven cumbersome around town. The non-power assisted steering and bolt-action five-speed manual gearbox required a fair bit of heft to bend to our will, but it didn't take long to start guessing at how much nuance there was hidden behind all that weight.

On the outskirts of town we inevitably buried the accelerator pedal. Liberated from the lardy hatchback and shoehorned into Caterham's flyweight frame, the 175bhp petrol engine slingshots the Seven to 60mph in less than 4.8 seconds, but it is the physicality of the car's performance which eclipses the figures.