Caterham Seven 620 R: new video

Caterham Cars has released a new official video starring its most extreme Seven model to date, the 620 R, which was unveiled in July at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. The model is equipped with a newly-engineered, 2.0-litre supercharged Ford Duratec engineproducing 310 horsepower and 296 Nm of peak torque. This unit is mated to a 6-speed sequential transmission with flat-shift, enough to allow the Seven 620R to sprint from 0 to 60 mph (96 km/h) in less than 2.8 seconds with a top speed of 155 mph (250 km/h).

The 620R is diametrically opposed to the new ultra-efficient, affordable entry-level Seventhat the British manufacturer has announced a while ago and will sit at the opposite end of the range when it will finally be unveiled in Autumn this year.

The car features a unique gunmetal chassis, an air-flow optimised nose cone and a race-developed cooling package. De Dion rear suspension and wide track front suspension units are complemented by high-performance dampers all round, while the car sits on lightweight, 13” alloy wheels fitted with track-inspired Avon ZZR tyres. As for the interior, definitely worth mentioning are the carbon fibre interior panels and dash, the carbon fibre race seats and a Q/R race steering wheel. Unfortunately, the overall weight of the car is yet to be made official.

from EUROCARBLOG

Stew’s Honda 400Four Cafe Racer

The Honda CB400Four is a sweet looking bike even before you start messing with it, but there’s still plenty of scope for the usual strip down and cafe-fication, and one has been very tastefully put together by Stew in the UK.

He bought the donor from a neighbor to his workplace as a stock bike with 50,000 miles and in need of some serious TLC. “It ran OK but had the usual oily crap all over the front of the engine, cam chain rattle and the carbs flooded fuel everywhere when it first fired up.”

“My original plan was to sort the oil and fuel issues, maybe add new rings or a re-bore and do a mild Ace bar / hump back seat ‘n’ rearsets, and maybe a little paint. I made a start on the chassis but the oily motor kept niggling away at me so I took the head off and to my horror saw the part of 2 of the pistons had broken up and made a mess of the head. On further inspection the rings had broken up and wrecked the barrels too. At testament to Honda engineering that it ran at all me thinks!” In the end Stew fitted a 460cc big bore piston kit and bored out the engine 3mm to take out the scoring.

Originally Stew was also going to re-rim and spoke the wire wheels he I got hold of some Superdream wheels, forks and brakes, which he refurbished and re-built. The forks has to be shortened to get the stance right and account for the 19 inch front wheel. All the work and the fabrication was done by Stew along with the carbon fiber film and crinkle black paint, although the tank and side panels were painted by Stig at Sickboyz Customs.

“It’s a fully functioning weekend rider and definitely not a ‘show-only bike’ although it is a little on the small side for me, it is fun to ride!”

Thanks for sharing Stew. We hope to see her in the flesh at the BSMC Event II this October.

via The Bike Shed

Caine's Cars: Rebel without a Licence

Sir Michael Caine is definitely no petrolhead. In fact, it wasn’t until he was 50 that he passed his driving test, and once he turned 70 he gave up driving altogether.

"I got in the car and the guy looked at me and went, 'I loved you in The Man Who Would Be King. You're going to have to be s*** to not pass this test.'”

He grew up during the Second World War, when there weren't a lot of cars about. And being a Londoner, public transport was good and the need for his own car or motorbike just wasn’t there. Success, though, in the 1960s, meant that the first car he ever bought was a Rolls-Royce. And so expensive was the insurance premium that it was cheaper to hire a chauffeur.

From that day onwards, he’s been a confirmed fan of the British marque. It was moving to Los Angeles that prompted him to finally take a test, the massive urban sprawl of LA, Beverly Hills and Hollywood making personal transport a necessity.

Speaking in 2011, Caine recounted: "It was weird. Before I took the test, the man said the guy who would be doing the test was sitting outside in the car and that I would only speak to him to say good morning.

"There would be no normal conversation - he would give me instructions, I would listen to him and that was that. There would be no personal remarks whatsoever.

"I got in the car and the guy looked at me and went, 'I loved you in The Man Who Would Be King. You're going to have to be s*** to not pass this test.'” So, at the age of 50, he passed.

Three Minis and an Aston Martin

Caine’s onscreen persona 'Charlie Croker' was clearly a man comfortable behind the wheel of a fast getaway car. However, the real life Michel Caine needed the wife of stunt maestro Rémy Julienne to double for him in driving scenes that featured the Aston DB4.

Her blonde hair, apparently, made the deception that much easier.

Get Carter: only from the passenger seat

In Mike Hodges’ 1971 gangland thriller ‘Get Carter’, Caine plays the title role of a tough Londoner on his own in the North East of England. Amongst a kaleidoscope of gritty action scenes, ‘Jack’ is driven by a seductively lovely Geraldine Moffat (playing ‘Glenda’) in her white Sunbeam Alpine. Never was a gear knob clutched so hard and so sensuously.

Since then, other notable ‘Caine and cars’ scenes include playing Alfred the butler in the Batman adventure The Dark Knight Rises, and voicing ‘Finn McMissile’, an Aston Martin, in Cars 2.

A small victory for the Working Classes

...he walked in, ‘Jack Carter style’ and told them exactly what he thought of them - in sign language - a big grin spread over his face

Once given the brush-off by one Rolls-Royce dealer for his Bermondsey accent, Maurice Joseph Micklewhite (to give Caine his real name) confidently walked to another and bought a bright yellow example.

Parking his new purchase right outside the first establishment, he walked in, ‘Jack Carter style’ and told them exactly what he thought of them - in sign language - a big grin spread over his face.

patience