Winter is here. Thank God for Honda and its new small sports car

IT’S that time of year again – the bit where I’m dreading more motoring misery and driving home in the dark.

A flotsam of leaves have fallen from the trees onto an increasingly wet and windy north west landscape, the clocks have been wound back, and the predictable slew of automotive experts have been rolled out to tell us how we’re all going to have to concentrate extra hard to make sure we don’t crash in the dark.

The perfect time, then, to talk about small, open top sports cars.

Maybe I’ve spent too much time poking my nose around old MG Midgets and Triumph Spitfires this summer, but I’ve been keeping an eye on the more recent al-fresco offerings and haven’t exactly been bowled over. The Jaguar F-type, for instance, toyed with us for years with its promises of being a Boxster basher that’d make every Brit proud, but while it looks fabulous its £58,000 starting price isn’t exactly in tune with a nation worried about paying its next gas bill.

Toyota’s open-top version of the excellent GT-86, it’s now being widely rumoured, has been axed, while the problem with the rest of the small sports cars you can actually afford is that there simply aren’t any. The MG TF, Fiat Barchetta, Daihatsu Copen and Toyota MR-2 are all gone. Mazda and Alfa Romeo have teamed up to create two MX-5 based roadsters, but the finished product still seems a long way off. That is the only ray of faint sunshine in a winter utterly devoid of fun cars.

Or at least it was until Honda and Caterham got in on the act.

I smiled the smile of a chocoholic let loose at Cadbury World when I found out Caterham – who, don’t forget, have been a bit busy running F1 teams lately – have got back to basics and made a cheaper version of the Seven which goes back to its roots. The end result might not be the quickest thing the company’s ever created, but it costs the same as a low-spec Ford Focus and has skinny little tyres, a motorbike engine and next to no weight or creature comforts whatsoever. In other words, big fun.

But even that pales into comparision with what Honda’s been up to, on the other side of the world. While all the eyes at next month’s Tokyo Motor Show will be on the new NSX supercar, the boffins have also found time to create the S660, which is a tiny, mid-engined, open-top sports car.

Forget the technology and the snazzy styling – it’s the new Healey Sprite. Get making it, Honda!

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Caterham goes karting

THOSE two cornerstones of heroic driving - Caterhams and karts - have been spectacularly combined in a new entry-level motorsport series.

The Surrey firm who brought you the Seven have drawn on their years of staging one-make racing series - and, more recently, their F1 experience - to create a karting series for keen racers, with the £4,995+VAT package and the machine itself, the CK-01, making at their debut at this month's Autosport show down at the NEC.

Caterham Group CEO, Tony Fernandes, said: “Caterham Karting will once again make this fantastic sport accessible to everyone, without losing any element of the competition and experience. In fact, with tight regulations and totally transparent, controlled costs, Caterham Karting will simply be the best value, most competitive and most fun karting in the world.

“This is not just another new karting championship, this is a revolution in motor racing. Motorsport for all is finally here.”

The package, designed to appeal to novice drivers, includes the kart itself, the necessary training to get your racing licence, entry into a six-race season, and full technical support from the gurus at Caterham itself. The CK-01 is ideal for either launching your motorsport career or - more likely - having an absolute ball on the track for less than the cost of a Citroen C1. It's also - and I know this probably doesn't get said very often - a fantastic looking bit of kit. If you're keen to find out more, go to www.caterham.co.uk or call 01883 333 700.

Can I have a go?

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Renault and Caterham join forces to build sports cars

 

THE problem with Renault's Wind was that it wasn't hardcore enough.

It was my kinda car; small, light, blessed with a clever roof which didn't ruin the shape, and underpinned with the same basic mechanicals you'll find in the Renaultsport Twingo 133. Yet the little roadster always lacked the bite of its hatchback sister, which I suspect is part of the reason why Renault quietly dropped the wind from its range last year.

Luckily, Renault's found an innovative solution to making its sports cars a touch more manic. It's brought its F1 partnership with Caterham onto the road, so the French automotive giant will join forces with the plucky Brit firm to design and build cars together, with the inevitable results getting the famed Alpine badge.

Renault chief Carlos Tavares said yesterday as the tie-up was announced: "Our ambitions of reviving Alpine depended on our ability to find a partner in order to ensure the economic profitability of such an adventure. Right from the start, we wanted to place the Dieppe plant at the heart of the project.

"Today, through our partnership with Caterham Group, we can enter a new phase:  the design of a vehicle that will embody the very essence of Alpine, a vehicle that will rekindle sporting passion once more. It could become a reality within the next three or four years."

It's the second sports car tie-up announced in the space of a year, after Fiat and Mazda teamed up to build an Alfa Spider with MX-5 mechanicals. However, if Renault matches the pedigree of its last proper sports car - the spectacular, race-bred Spyder - with Caterham's best known offering - the bonkers Seven R500 - then the Anglo-French efforts look set to interest the more hardcore end of the market.

Either way, it's encouraging to see that even in these tricky times, car makers still want to give us something to get excited about.

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