Dreaming of St Moritz and a Caterham Seven
Is there another sports car you could buy today that more intimately connects you with the road than the Caterham Seven? Over the years, I have driven, built and raced Sevens, and nothing but nothing is as intoxicating. Yet the most memorable experience was taking a Seven I’d lived with, during my time at Top Gear magazine, from London to St Moritz.
It was a road trip with a difference. For starters, I’d have company when I arrived in St Moritz - at least another 50 drivers of Sevens. Like me, they were attending the annual bash organised by the Lotus Seven Owners Club of Switzerland. And like me, they’d come in search of good roads and (hopefully) equally good company.
You might assume that the star of the show was the Seven, in all its wonderful and varied incarnations. But actually it was the roads. Touring the Swiss Alps and criss-crossing into Italy was like driving into the cover of one of Switzerland’s famed chocolate boxes. The crisp blue skies, fluffy white clouds, rolling alpine meadows in vivid green, the sound of the cows and their gently-chiming bells, the rush of water running down mountain sides - it was all a far cry from West London, where I was living at the time.
The Seven was as satisfying as every Seven is. You’d line up the road between the headlights, feel the kick of the tail out of hairpins, smile as the engine whipped round to the rev-limit yet again and juggle your feet on the dainty pedals, matching the engine revs on each downshift. And of course, with the roof down for the entire trip, there was the sun on your face and wind in your hair.
There’s something else, too. The Swiss must get just a little fed up with all these road-trippers playing in their back garden. But wherever you went in the Seven, you were made to feel welcome.
By the end of it, I’d have done anything to not have to turn that car around and set off back for London. The roads of Switzerland have called me back since. But each time I have found my thoughts drifting off to that Caterham Seven. Some day, the Seven and I will return to St Moritz.