Battle of the sports Cars Audi R8 vs Caterham SVR 200
THEY’RE TWO OF THE SPORTIEST CARS MONEY CAN BUY, YET THEY’RE
TOTAL OPPOSITES. STEVE COLQUHOUN FINDS OUT WHICH ONE BEST DELIVERS
DRIVING THRILLS.
AH, SPORTS cars. They’re the ultimate automotive fantasy,
promising the excitement and panache of a Monaco lifestyle; roaring
away from rest, sweeping through the bends and responding instantly
to the driver’s deft skills, all the while seeking to draw envious
stares from onlookers stuck on the footpaths of life.
Sports cars are, indeed, a hedonistic pursuit. And summer being
the season of hedonism, we’ve snared two that come to the party
from opposite directions. One, the $275,000 Audi R8, is a high-tech
rocketship, packed with virtually every electronic system we can
think of. The other, the $107,700 Caterham Seven SVR 200, a race
car for the road, has virtually none.
What they have in common is two seats, seatbelts, steering
wheel, windscreen wipers, a key and engine immobiliser, and 98
octane in the tank. And that’s about it.
The Audi offers a starfighter-like list of pilot aids: launch
control, robotic gearbox, paddle shifts, all-wheel drive,
switchable suspension settings, traction control, stability control
and smart anti-lock brakes, all packed into a 21st century
aluminium space frame. And there’s no small matter of a 309 kW
4.2-litre V8 positioned behind the cabin, shown off to the world
below a glass hatch.
Then there’s the creature comforts - including climate-control
air-conditioning, power adjustment on seats, windows and mirrors,
sat-nav, a Bang Olufsen stereo, leather everywhere - so you
and your glamorous companion can arrive quickly and unruffled.
And the Caterham? It’s positively prehistoric. Doors? No.
Windows? Er, no. There’s no power steering, no power brakes, no
air-conditioning and not even a radio.
But what it misses out on appointments it promises to deliver in
raw thrills. Under the bonnet is a hand-built race engine by
Cosworth, the company that powered Alan Jones to his formula one
driver’s championship. There’s a close-ratio six-speed gearbox and
a tiny but thick-rimmed Moto-Lita steering wheel.
And it weighs in like a dieting supermodel. Starting at 575 kg
(680 kg as tested), the car weighs little more than a third of the
1565 kg Audi R8. And on the stats sheet it’s faster to 100 km/h
than the Audi: a claimed 3.9 seconds versus 4.6 seconds.
Which one of these two very different beasts best fills the
sports-car dream? Unfortunately, the bean counters wouldn’t stump
up for tickets to Monaco. So instead we took them for a drive in
country Victoria, wishing all the while we were millionaires in the
hills behind Monte Carlo.
THE AUDI
Getting settled in the Audi is easy: the push-button motors on
the seat whir you into a perfect relationship to the adjustable
steering wheel and the two pedals - brake and accelerator. There’s
no clutch pedal, as manual gear changes are looked after by putting
the car in “D” for drive or by clicking the steering wheel paddles
to go up and down the gears.
Left to its own devices, though, moving way from rest is a jerky
affair, with an odd resistance to overcome that makes standing
starts, low-speed manoeuvring and reversing annoyingly difficult to
execute smoothly. It feels as if the brake pads just won’t release
on the discs. Once you’re rolling, get ready to take in the rapidly
changing view through the windscreen.
In the R8, there’s no part of the car visible forward of the
windscreen. It’s easy to fool yourself you’re really piloting a
space shuttle.
The big V8 powerplant amidships does most of its work with a
muted whine from behind a glass partition separating it from the
cabin, rising to an aurally pleasing howl only under heavy
right-foot provocation or some deft downshifting fingerwork with
the steering wheel-mounted paddles.
Plant the right foot and unleash 430 Nm as it piles on speed in
a civilised way: there’s no neck-snapping jolts of brute power,
more a hand-of-God push that passengers will marvel at. The speedo
is marked to 350 km/h and the car will certainly reach 301 km/h,
Audi says.
The car steers where pointed. What it all means is that your
average weekend warrior can pick up the R8 by the scruff and place
it virtually anywhere he wants on the road, at any speed legally
allowable, every time. Just pick your apex and hit it, with time
left over to look down the road at the next corner, and the one
after that. It would almost get boring if it didn’t make you feel
so good about yourself.
The massive brakes (380 mm front discs clamped by eight-piston
calipers, 356 mm discs/four-piston rears) wash off speed faster
than an Aussie bowler losing his run-up, and it’ll do it time after
time. With all-paw grip on wide Pirelli P Zeros, it makes for one
of the most reassuring cars you can drive in any weather or road
condition.
THE CATERHAM
Leave it to the Caterham to take your self-esteem down a peg or
three. Not unlike climbing out of an F/A-18 Hornet and into a
Spitfire, you substitute the R8’s power-everything for the
Caterham’s power-nothing. Even its indicator switch is a manual
toggle that could have come from a Dick Smith catalogue. It has to
be flicked to the right and left, requiring the driver to remember
to switch it off after a turn.
There’s something very primal about “slipping” behind the wheel
of the Caterham, even if the doorless configuration does require an
act of contortionism to do so. It’s difficult to get in and sit
down without first standing on the seat.
The coffin driving position sandwiches you between the
transmission tunnel and the side of the car’s body; knees just
clear of the steering wheel.
The side mirrors require manual adjustment by a passenger.
There’s a trick, too, to starting the Caterham, involving
finding the hidden key-slot and fumbling with the immobiliser. It
takes some practice not to make it look like you’re hot-wiring the
car.
The three pedals are close-set, so be warned: don’t nudge the
accelerator as you twist the ignition key - you’ll send the engine
roaring off the rev limiter from the get-go, such is its rev-happy
nature. Oh well, at least that’s the first fright out of the
way.
The free-spinning engine owes a lot of its character to a
lightweight flywheel, which means there’s virtually no delay in
responding to the accelerator, whether mashing down or lifting
off.
First time away, the hair-trigger response means you’re more
than likely going to bunny-hop the car a few hundred metres before
getting into the swing of things.
Most significantly, the Caterham’s six-speed, H-pattern, manual
gearbox is guaranteed to magnify any mistake you make tenfold. It’s
a lesson in trial and error, but when you finally figure out what
it likes, your reward is a smugness that exceeds anything on offer
in the R8. Slot home the first five short-throw gears in rapid
succession without significant incident, and revel in a top cog
that will unleash the racing Cosworth Duratec and launch you with
exhilarating elasticity from 60 km/h to the speed limit.
Driving the Caterham is such a raw, even brutal, experience,
that 60 km/h feels like 100, and 100 km/h feels like much, much
more.
Seated only centimetres off the ground and with no roof, no
sound-deadening and barely-there rear suspension, you are assaulted
by engine, transmission and road noise and buffeted by every lump
and bump in the road surface.
The brakes, though, barely feel up to the task, in spite of the
Caterham’s magnificent lack of mass. They need a hard shove, just
like in the Flintstones cartoons.
However, master the tricky gearbox and its finicky clutch, the
narrow pedal confines and the just-there brakes and you can attack
corners with vigour - and this is where the Caterham hits its
stride.
Bilstein dampers equipped with Eibach springs soak up punishment
coming through the front wheels, while the Avon semi-track tyres,
inflated to just 18 psi (about half
the pressure of a regular sedan), grip magnificently. You will
be unable to wipe the silly grin from your face.
You will want to like the sun, too, because the rag roof is a
slow, fiddly operation.
At least there are curtain panels that slot onto the windscreen
frame to keep the air turbulence in the cabin to merely cyclonic
conditions. But the top rails of the windscreen and the side
windows are exactly the height to create an annoying blind spot for
taller drivers.
A dodgy fuel gauge that left us high and dry on the trip home
and some questionable kilometre readings are a cautionary tale for
prospective buyers not to put too much store in the accuracy of the
Caterham’s rudimentary gauges.
After experiencing the Caterham’s raw heroics, getting back into
the R8 suddenly felt clinical and detached. The Audi is everything
you would ever want from a sports car, and more, but that is also
its downfall. It does everything, leaving its pilot with little to
do but enjoy the scenery.The verdictSo what will it be: the suave
and sophisticated Audi R8 or the raw purity of the Caterham?
Frankly, neither works particularly well as a daily driver. The
difficulty in launching them - the R8 with its irritating inertia
issue and the hoppy Caterham - makes them irritating for everyday
use.
The low-slung, wide-hipped R8 is also tricky to park, and the
doorless, roofless Caterham, while boasting better visibility, has
all sorts of issues with security and weather protection if parked
anywhere other than your garage.
But which would we take as our companion on our Monaco fantasy
drive?
Some will deem the R8’s cosseted cabin, ease of operation and
look-at-moi profile as all the reason they need to splash a little
more than a lazy quarter-million on the latest addition to their
garage. The R8 pulled more jaw-dropping reactions from onlookers
than anything we’ve ever driven.
The Caterham, though, is a unique experience: a race car that
you can road register, a car that demands to be driven and rewards
competence like few others.
If you’re more about the drive and less about the destination,
the Caterham is a unique and unadulterated weekend fun machine.
If you chose the Caterham over the R8, you could use the money
you saved to buy an Audi S5 ($131,900), a car that’s far easier to
live with on a day-to-day basis than the R8.
But while the roads of country Gippsland are a world away from
Monaco, if it’s the ethereal ego trip of ice-cool supermodels, Dom
Perignon and mega yachts you dream of, well, there’s really only
one choice, isn’t there?
THE CATERHAM SEVEN STORY
IF THE Caterham Seven SVR 200 looks old-school, that’s because
it is.
The Seven - originally known as the Lotus Seven and designed by
Lotus founder Colin Chapman - celebrated its 50th anniversary last
year and is referred to by the company as a “race car for the
road”.
The name change occurred in 1973 when Lotus announced it would
discontinue production of the Seven. Graham Nearn, who owned a
Lotus dealership in the British township of Caterham, successfully
bought the rights to continue its production.
The Caterham Seven is constructed of aluminium sheet attached to
a tubular-steel chassis, achieving its great performance from its
light weight rather than a large engine. The front-engined,
rear-wheel-drive car typically housed engines of 1.4 to 1.8 litres,
although the SVR 200 tested by Drive has a more powerful and
slightly heavier, 2.3-litre, Cosworth-Ford Duratec racing engine
fitted.
About 700 competitors in 11 countries race in Caterham-only
championships, making it one of the most popular racing cars in the
world.
AUDI R8 4.2 FSI QUATTRO CATERHAM SEVEN SVR 200
Price From $275,000 (plus on-roads) From $107,700 (plus on-roads)
Engine 4.2-litre V8 (309 kW/430 Nm) 2.3-litre Cosworth Duratec racing spec (147 kW/214 Nm)
Economy 13.6 L/100 km (claimed) 11.5 L/100 km (claimed)
14.3 L/100 km (on test) 10.1 L/100 km (on test)
Gearbox Sequential DSG 6-speed 6-speed manual with single clutch
(with double-plate clutch)
Suspension Double wishbone front and rear De Dion rear and Bilstein dampers front
Chassis Aluminium-magnesium spaceframe Tubular steel chassis with aluminium panels
Doors 2 None
Permanent all-wheel drive Yes No
Electronic engine management Yes Yes
Dry sump oil system Yes Yes
ESP Yes No
ABS Yes No
Traction control Yes No
Electronic differential lock Yes No (optional limited-slip differential)
Hydraulically assisted steering Yes No
Power-assisted brakes Yes No
Magnetic damper adjustment Yes No
Adjustable rear anti-roll bar No Yes
Automatic rear spoiler Yes (deployed at 100 km/h) No
Electrically heated windscreen No Yes
Front and side airbags with
two-stage inflation Yes No
Anti-theft alarm including
interior monitoring Yes No (immobiliser only)
Self-cancelling indicator Yes No
Front and rear parking sensors Yes No
Reversing camera Yes No
Tyre pressure monitoring system Yes No
Air-conditioning Yes No
Heater Yes Yes
Cruise control Yes No
Satellite navigation Yes No
6-disc CD changer Yes No
Bang Olufsen sound system Yes No
Leather seats Yes Optional
Eight-way electrically adjustable seats Yes No
Bluetooth ready Yes No
