Caterham looks to cycling industry to shave weight

Caterham’s formula for manufacturing lightweight, playful rear-wheel drive cars hasn’t changed much over the years – they’re still the ultimate value track toy you can buy, easy to service and tolerable on short distances outside of the track.

Now the company might be on the verge of a creating design which will give a new meaning to the term lightweight.  Caterham has been working with bicycle tubing company Reynolds and computer aided engineering (CAE) consultancy firm Simpact,

Prototype Seven 270 (which weighs 540kg) has already seen the light of day and when placed on the scales is 10% lighter and yet retains the same torsional rigidity. And while this is only the start, Caterham hopes to offer this new bicycle-inspired construction to customers by 2017 but admits that it might push the price up by around R30 000.

So what artistry makes it lighter? Butted tubes, apparently. Unlike normal frames, these tubes are thicker at the ends than in the middle and this means less tubing is required (around 50% in some places) without compromising the strength of the joints.

“Caterham has made its name as a purveyor of lightweight sportscars but we believe more can always be done to reduce weight and, therefore, emissions,” said Simon Lambert, CTO of Caterham.

“Caterham and Reynolds are two proudly British brands and there is a real synergy between customers of Caterham and cycling enthusiasts, so it’s even better that the technology that has made this possible has come from the two-wheeled world.”