Caterham Seven 420R Donington Edition: driven

Both on road and track, this limited-edition Caterham is totally addictive
1/7
Rob Adams|Autocar5 August 2017

Caterham Cars is 60 years old this year. It is 40 years since the famous Donington Park racetrack reopened. What better excuse for a joint celebration, and the creation of a special limited edition car, the Caterham Seven 420R Donington Edition?

If you’ve visited Donington recently, you’ll recognise the blue and white paint scheme with flashes of red: it’s the same as Donington’s latest logo. But there’s more: trackday company BookaTrack is now a Caterham dealer, based at Donington: its own employees will build each of the 10 special edition Sevens.

Buying a Donington Caterham born at Donington will cost you £47,500, and for that you get much more than simply a Seven with a special paint job. It has the six-speed sequential gearbox of the full-fat 620R Caterham, plus a roll cage and an ‘aero screen’ – basically, no windscreen whatsoever. Even as an option. Or a roof.

With uprated springs and dampers specially tuned for this car, it can lay better claim than most to being a road-legal racing car. All it lacks are the expensive carbonfibre wings and the noisy side-exit exhaust. It promises to be sensational.

And it is. The team building it said the idea was to give performance car buyers a feel of what it’s like to drive a real racing car on a track day. It’s fast, but accessible, without the race car’s knife-edge handling, and has a surprising ability to cope out on the road (something you’d never dream of doing in the racer).

You get proper seats and luxuries such as lights and a heater, but although the race-style harnesses are simpler to do up, they still give a thrill as you buckle up. Inevitably, driving it is brilliant, and addictive. Suddenly you find yourself focusing on lap times, driving better and better with every lap, improving every session with Lewis Hamilton-like intensity.

It is a delightful car to drive, with all the feel of the racing car but les of its snappiness. You’ll be drifting it like a hero in no time. And then there’s the engine, all raw excitement and hair-raising acceleration. Using the gearbox is exciting and it generally recreates the racing experience wholly convincingly. Then, unlike the racer, you can drive it home again.

It’s an inspired creation. The team behind it, whose signatures adorn a plaque on the dash of every Donington Edition built, hope it will become a serious collector’s edition in a couple of decade’s time. So brilliant is this amazing Caterham, we’d wager it’s already there.

Caterham Seven 420R Donington Edition

Location Donington Park, UK
Price £47,500
Price as tested £47,500
Engine 4cyls in line, 1999cc, petrol
Power 210bhp at 7600rpm
Torque 150lb ft at 6300rpm
Gearbox 6-spd sequential
​Kerb weight 560kg
​0-62mph 3.8sec (estimated)
Top speed 136mph
Fuel economy n/a CO2 rating n/a

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