Almost one year ago, Caterham’s then CEO, Graham Macdonald, told of a potential mainstream production model that would be more luxurious than Caterhams that have gone before and which would compete with the likes of the Lotus Elise on both price and performance. The company has now announced additional plans for a sub-compact city car and crossover SUV.
The seemingly steady progress towards a new era for Caterham is no doubt thanks to the sportscar makers relatively new found ties to Renault. The two manufacturers plan to capitalise on their involvement with Formula One to gain further notoriety in the performance car market. The Caterham F1 team’s cars are currently powered by Renault F1 engines.
Plans are already underway for the Alpine Caterham joint venture, which will see the revival of the Renault Alpine sports car, with the manufacturers having signed an agreement for Renault to sell a 50% stake of its Dieppe plant (the home of RenaultSport products) to Caterham.
“Sports cars will do well, but the city car and SUV are what the (Asian) market really wants,” said Caterham Chairman Tony Fernandes in a recent interview. “If we get the SUV right it will be huge.”
Fernandes reportedly told Reuters that the additional Caterham models would be based on Renaults and shipped in semi-finished form for final assembly in Asia, adding that the French automaker may decide to offer its own Alpine versions at a later stage.
Renault Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn has predicted initial production of “several thousand” Alpine and Caterham sports cars annually, but Fernandes said potential volumes were much higher for the crossover and mini.
Renault confirmed it was carrying out a “feasibility study” with Caterham on the new vehicles, which could reach markets by 2016.