Know a bit of history? Then you probably know that’s the place where you find about 95% of the British motoring industry.
Few companies survive and of those that do, most specialize in small track day cars that almost never have any use outside a closed stretch of tarmac.
Caterham is one of them, they’ve been making the Lotus 7 for decades now and are finally wising up as their CEO steps out to talk future.
For his company, that means a considerable range expansion by 2020. During the remaining eight year period there’s still plenty of stuff going on.
Obviously, they’ll want to create a range of cars that are fun to drive. Without such products they would have probably been dead by now.
In order to really get into the money making stride the range expansion will have to be somewhat more dramatic. Caterham CEO Mike Gascoyne is talking supercars and SUVs.
The first category shouldn’t be that much of a stretch. They’re good with speed, they’re good with technology, they have a Formula 1 team to get some help from and so on.
The interior might be a stretch but where did the SUV idea come from? Sure, they seem to be continuously selling these days, but don’t you have to make a good one to make a difference?
Unless Caterham have sorted out some sort of alliance or technical partnership with any other major manufacturer, it seems very hard to see how it would happen.
Still, they have the best part of a decade to show me how wrong I am. While they do that, I’m going to still be looking forward to those models that are fun.
