After we sampled the unique present automotive, full with gorgeous polished-alloy bodywork, we had been impressed, then street check editor Andrew Frankel declaring: “It’s, if you happen to like, a Seven with out the strings. It has an enormous boot and blots out the weather effectively sufficient to make a two-week European tour not merely potential however pure and interesting. It lacks the on a regular basis practicality of, say, a TVR Chimaera and is best described as a compact Chrysler Viper with not one of the bulk however all the efficiency.”
Fairly the fulsome verdict. So, how come you’ve in all probability by no means heard of the 21? Properly, for all its ambition and promise, it was scuppered by time and timings.
Caterham deliberate on constructing round 200 per 12 months (a 3rd of Seven manufacturing), nevertheless it dragged its heels at a time when inexpensive roadsters had been changing into fairly the factor.
Its engineers saved going again to the drafting board to refine the design, together with ditching the aluminium bodywork for composite moulded panels.
The end result was that totally consultant buyer vehicles took some time to return on stream, which means we weren’t in a position to topic it to a full street check till 1997. By then the sport had moved on.
The 21 dealt with and carried out with the panache you’d count on, nevertheless it was hobbled by wearisome noise, vibration and harshness and irritations comparable to facet home windows that could possibly be ‘opened’ solely by unscrewing them.
