The dinky Seven is available in many flavors back home in the United States, ranging from the turbocharged 660-cc Seven 170 to the supercharged 2.0-liter Seven 620. Across the English Channel, the lineup is topped by the Seven 485 Final Edition.
Two such editions, to be more precise, of which 85 will be produced for Europe. Caterham decided to split production between 60 units of the Seven 485 Final Edition and 25 of the Seven 485 CSR Final Edition. Although it retains the look of the standard model, CSR stands for performance upgrades.
How does the FE differ from the regular 485? For starters, the so-called Final Edition finish. Caterham refers to five premium colors for the bodywork, satin-black stripes, and special touches for the interior. Said touches include a numbered plaque, a carbon-fiber dashboard to shave off a few unwanted kilos, and Final Edition embroidery for the seats.
Upholstered in black leather and Alcantara, the Sports Hex-style driver and passenger seats are joined by four-point harnesses, black-face gauges with black outer edges and white lettering, black letter on the transmission tunnel, and black carpeting for the footwells. The 485 Final Edition is available with either the standard or large chassis, whereas the go-faster CSR is large chassis only because of the inboard front suspension layout.
Caterham says the CSR Final Edition weighs 605 kilograms (1,334 pounds), while Final Edition tips the scales at 560 kilograms (1,235 pounds). Both versions are powered by a naturally aspirated 2.0-liter engine from the Ford Motor Company, with said lump making 228 ps at 8,500 revolutions per minute and 205 Nm at 6,300 revolutions per minute. That's 225 horsepower and 151 pound-feet, and the aforementioned redline should give you an idea about how different this fellow is from the 2.0-liter I4 GDI engines used in Ford passenger vehicles.
Photo: Caterham
Reaching 100 kilometers per hour (62 miles per hour) takes 4.1 seconds, while maximum speed is rated at 224 kilometers per hour (139 miles per hour). Part of the reason the Seven 485 doesn't go any faster is the manual tranny's gearing, and the other part is that it's a fiver instead of a sixer.
Olivier Jouanne, whose current role at Caterham is that of European Territory Manager, says that "customers now have the possibility to own the last highest-revving, naturally aspirated Seven to ever be produced." This, in turn, signals the bitter end of naturally aspirated Sevens in the Old Continent. As opposed to fuel economy in the United States, the biggest hurdle for automakers in the European Union is fleet-average carbon dioxide emissions.
Similarly, the United Kingdom's free-breathing new car market is hampered by the so-called ZEV mandate. Simply put, no fewer than 22 percent of a given automaker's new passenger vehicle sales have to be fully electric in 2024. The minimum percentage will increase to 28 percent in 2025, all the way to a simply ridiculous 80 percent in 2030.
Given these circumstances, Caterham is poised to start production of the Project V coupe-bodied electric sports car in 2026. The Seven is expected to become fully electric in 2028, although the automaker from Dartford has yet to confirm a tentative SOP date for the Seven EV.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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