Quote :

Caterham has turned to cyberspace to design its next model – the low-volume carmaker is calling on fans around the world to log onto a bespoke website to submit their ideas and designs for every aspect of the new Caterham, before ultimately voting on what makes it to the final vehicle.

The website – www.splitwheel.com - will act as a forum, hosting blogs, articles and what Caterham calls ‘a Wikipedia-style user-edited knowledge base’ to turn user input into a workable vehicle design. A comprehensive voting system that covers all aspects of the car will then be initiated, and once the final specification is agreed a prototype will be produced with initial production slated for 2011.


Caterham is hoping the forum will explore how the company should proceed and take into account environmental pressures by exploring alternative methods of propulsion, such as electric and hybrid drivetrains, while still maintaining the Caterham’s white-knuckle driving dynamics.

That certainly is interesting!Although I have my doubts as to wether it is serious or just an elaborate poll of interested people...

Quote :

...environmental pressures by exploring alternative methods of propulsion, such as electric and hybrid drivetrains...

Yeah that ain't gona happen. Enough of the environmental shit already, all you get is 'celebs' endorsing it because 'it's good for the environment' and it makes them look squeaky clean. F1 has already been taken over by it as far as I can gather.

Here's what they need: a light 4 or 6 pot up front, an extremely capable chassis, and supercar beating performance.. oh wait that's what they already have.

Just make the car wider and give it fresh, modern styling. So long as it doesn't resemble a modernised Seven, and looks like a truly fresh design, it could be good.

Isn't that what they tried to do around late 90's by themselves? But it didn't come off well: the design process kept getting stuck, and they claimed they wouldn't be able to pull through with the competition (lotus elise). So they stick to the original super-seven body.

There is a BBC documentary about it, which had the whole inside story about that. I can't remember what it was called, but I remember it was narrated by John Peel.

Quote from Bob Smith :

Just make the car wider and give it fresh, modern styling. So long as it doesn't resemble a modernised Seven, and looks like a truly fresh design, it could be good.

The styling of the Caterham at the moment is iconic, as it's based on an iconic car. It would seem a crying shame to change it. I guess they could modernize it a bit, but the general look would need to remain.

needs more gas/oil guzzling rotary power

There are wide body versions from other manufacturers but they're not very popular - certain Dax varieties support V8 motors etc.

I'm not sure what they could do to improve it really, make sure it doesn't look cheap whatever they do.

Anyone remember the Caterham 21?

Don't most car manufacturers hire designers to design their cars for them, instead of getting people to do it for free?

I hope everyone who registers automatically becomes a shareholder...

This is horrible. I mean really. A real Caterham has a N/A inline-4, with twin carbs and a classic design with Minilite-wheels.

I hate changes.

Hmmm ... thinking based on the LXs in LFS

Wider track, wider tyres but make the car shorter in length. Change the styling a bit to reduce drag, too. I like four wheel drive, but I don't think it's necessary in this case

Good ol' Donkervoort D8 has the nicest shape/look to me

Quote from duke_toaster :

Hmmm ... thinking based on the LXs in LFS

Wider track, wider tyres but make the car shorter in length. Change the styling a bit to reduce drag, too. I like four wheel drive, but I don't think it's necessary in this case

Why would you make it shorter? You realise that would be virtually impossible.

I'm tall, but I can only just get in my dads, with no room to spare. There is very little room under the bonnet, and the back is just taken up with a fuel tank and axle etc.

Drag is a problem, but then they aren't about top speed, that said the front wheel guards have flown off a few times at high speed, but the new Caterhams have grooves cut in them anyway to 'reduce drag'.

I think here though we should be talking about something completely new, not reinventing the 7.

I guess making it shorter will be harder to handle? Allot of power with short wheelbase?

Mid-engine, 2 seats, rear wheel drive, tube frame chassis, adjustable independant suspension, no roof and classic futuristic looks without looking like a riced space ship. Maybe even a wing or two that give it little downforce

Take a Super7, lop 2 wheels off. Way more fun.

I've only casually read that site, but I think most posts here are missing the point. This is not an attempt to update the seven, or even recreate yet another sevenesque design. The brief simply seems to be for a "new performance car" and its up to the community to decide what that means...

Looks to me like its a way of getting "premium subscribers" to pay some bright spark's wages, since I doubt anyone contributing to the site will get a free car out of the deal...

I'll wait to be convinced otherwise, but if I had any bright ideas for a brand new performance car, I'd keep them to myself until someone paid me. Not to say that I don't think the open source concept couldn't be applied to the design and manufacture of real world commodities, but I don't think this little venture has any higher goals than building a subscription base.

iRental for the real world?

hm sorry......caterham was originally just a distributor of the 7, nobody says they MUST only build 7 replicas.......westfield has their radical like thingy too so what's the problem?

Quote from S14 DRIFT :

The styling of the Caterham at the moment is iconic, as it's based on an iconic car. It would seem a crying shame to change it. I guess they could modernize it a bit, but the general look would need to remain.

They're not changing it. It's planned to be produced alongside the 7 as a second model in their 'range' of cars.

Yes, it's definitely not a replacement for the Seven.

Interesting project indeed, and I know that in their initial design meetings they already discussed ways to ensure they do not create The Homer.

Yeah, Caters are ok, but ...

Elfin MS8 please. Oh, what's that? I can have a 300hp 5.7L V8 in it? Golly! Sure, twist my arm

Quote from Hankstar :

Yeah, Caters are ok, but ...

Elfin MS8 please. Oh, what's that? I can have a 300hp 5.7L V8 in it? Golly! Sure, twist my arm

Was reviewed by my fave weekly car magazine (Tasty bunch of drivers, good mag) and it came a dead last out of a group test.

And I can imagine, a car like that is not designed to have a big heavy engine. Besides, you can get 240bhp from a 1.8, so with some mods 300bhp would be easily achievable, and it would weight 1/4 of the weight of that LS2 engine.

Being Australian, it was designed precisely for a big heavy engine, and it's an LS1 - the LS2 (I believe) is 6 litres and you can find it in some of the new HSV range. It's just that it's very easy to get a 5.7 V8 up to 300hp (plus, apart from hp, it's rubber-boiling V8 torque that Aussies love :nod. Once you have 300hp straight out of the box, a few tweaks can make it beyond ridiculous. Hello LX8 :up:

Anyway, I hear the new Elfin T5 Clubman is a much nicer weapon...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... D937DA8A0FF21&index=3

As I said, awful :P