Caterham cars is hatching ambitious plans to one day move away from being a niche maker of sportscars that are as impractical as they are enjoyable: extremely, that is. It could include electric cars and, even more surprisingly, an SUV. Imagine that.
In 2012 Caterham was talking to Renault about a partnership that would have seen it become the French maker’s sportscar arm, then potentially work together to produce a Caterham-branded SUV. It seems crazy, but arguably no more so than when Porsche first announced it would build one
Speaking to the Auto Express podcast, Caterham boss Graham McDonald explained that while it cannot possibly hope to develop an SUV by itself from the ground up, it may look again into partnering up with another manufacturer. It’s an alluring possibility, on paper at least – Caterham taking an established SUV platform and turning it into something that’s both large and dynamically engaging.
McDonald also talked to Auto Express about electric power, saying that its engineers are “actively monitoring” the market for electric cars to establish if and when it should make one of its own.
If it did go down the electric route, it would be on the same basis as it produces its current sports cars – by using parts from other manufacturers, rather than building from the scratch. “We recognise that the future is electrification but, as you know, we utilise main brand engines. So we’ve used the Suzuki engine, we use the Ford engines just now – so we wouldn’t be naïve enough to think we could develop our own EV powertrain; we’d be looking to use an off-the-shelf package,” said McDonald.
The stumbling blocks to electric power for Caterham are weight and cost, though: “Part of the mantra of the Caterham is lightweight…but currently we think an all-electric powertrain would add more than 300kg to what is, already, about a 500kg car.
“I am sure as time goes on that all these major manufacturers and major battery manufacturers are all working to get more lightweight, longer range, cheaper batteries and more efficient motors. When that comes down to a point where Caterham can talk to, say, Ford or Nissan and say “can we buy your powertrain and put it in a Caterham?” we’ll be there knocking on their doors,” McDonald explained.
Keyword: Would you buy a Caterham SUV? You might get the chance on day