Back in April, when the owners of Formula 1’s Team Lotus acquired British sports car maker Caterham, they promised to “have all the ingredients and the launch pad to take Caterham to new exciting horizons with innovative products and greater brand exposure.”
True to their word, Caterham's new owners announced on Monday that they are creating a new, standalone engineering business named CTI (Caterham Technology and Innovation).
The newly formed division will undertake the development of a new range of affordable sports cars that promise to remain true to the Seven’s character.
This amounts to an evolution for Caterham, which up until now, was renowned only for the Seven, the building rights of which it acquired from Lotus owner Colin Chapman in 1973. According to the company, CTI will also benefit from technology used in the Team Lotus F1 and Caterham Team AirAsia GP2 motorsport activities.
“The new shareholders are committed to investing in an exciting range of global products over the next 10 years”, said CTI’s CEO Mark Edwards.
The firm has already begun recruiting new staff, with one of the first being Tony Shute who has in his CV the Lotus Elise and will be CTI’s Head of Road Cars.
Caterham Cars’ CEO, Ansar Ali, commented: “Creating a new product range that has the same reputation and appeal as the Seven is the Holy Grail of the business. To meet the challenge, we knew we needed to invest in a new operation that would have the scope, experience and vision to deliver.”
CTI will be based in Norfolk, near Team Lotus’ motorsport operations.
3 Comments:
"This amounts to an evolution for Caterham, which up until now, was renowned only for the Seven"
That's not true, in 1994 Caterham already tried launching a new model alongside the Seven, albeit based on it, the 21. It didn't do very well and it was discontinued after only 48 had been made.
When the name Caterham is listed, I take time to read it. Honed in the quintessential essence of the automobile there are few who garner such raw passion.
You are indeed correct. But when you hear the name "Caterham", you instantly think of the Seven, not the 21 which, as you say, was a failure despite receiving at the time positive reviews from the British press.
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