British car manufacturer, noted for their continued production of the Lotus Super Seven, made famous in the BBC television series The Prisoner in the late 60s. The Caterham Seven, like the Lotus Super Seven, is available in kit form. It also has incredible performance, owing to its low center of gravity and extremely high power-to-weight ratio. The main impediment to top-speed performance is its poor aerodynamics. Caterham also produces a more modern car, the Caterham 21.

The Caterham Seven is based on the Lotus Seven Mark III - The Prisoner drove the Mark IV, which had longer, more elaborate wings than the III.

The Seven is essentially an engine in a rectangular metal box, with four wheels poking from the sides and two seats attached to the back. In Superlight R form, the car has no doors, windscreen or hood, and can only be driven practically whilst wearing a motorcycle helmet.

Sevens appeal in many ways - they are relatively cheap, extremely simple, you can buy them in kit form, and they are reliable, in the sense that there isn't much to go wrong, and even if it does, you can fix it because you probably built the car yourself.

Self-assembly supposedly takes around 70 hours, and once complete, you have to arrange for a local garage - or Caterham themselves - to inspect the car for safety and emissions.

Below 100mph the Catherham Seven Superlight R500 is as fast as any roadgoing Ferrari; you would need to be a dedicated driver to exceed 100mph, however.

Sevens are built to race, or drive to racetracks; crash protection takes the form of extremely accurate steering and precise roadholding. Otherwise, the car does not feature ABS, EBD, four-wheel-drive, traction control, airbags, air conditioning, a sound system, leather, a boot, electric windows or vanity mirrors. Apart from direct competitor Westfield, only Morgan approach the same level of single-mindedness.

Caterham are also known for having stood up to the 'big boys' of supercars (Ferrari, McLaren, Lamborghini etc.) having beaten the world road car record for accelerating/braking from 'standing to 100mph and then back to standing'.

This was most significant because it was done in a car listed at £36,200, compared to the price-tags of previous record holders, usually listing in at least hundreds of thousands of US Dollars.

The Caterham Superlight R500 (one of the company's many variants on the classic Lotus 7 design) completed the test in 11.44 seconds, beating the old record by .06 of a second. This had been held by a special version of the McLaren F1 LM car. The only cars to beat the Caterham in this test were purpose built race-cars (not road-legal), specifically a Jaguar Formula 1 car, and a 477bhp Gould Cosworth Hillclimb car.

The test was conducted at Bruntingthorpe airfield. It was part of a series of tests conducted annually by the editorial team from Autocar magazine.

This test is a PERFECT example of the basic principles behind Caterham's designs, and those of the man behind them all (Lotus founder Colin Chapman). Build it light, and build it small, and a lot of the rest will take care of itself.

If Chapman were alive today, he'd be grinning from ear to ear, and trying to work out how to beat the Jag.