Jannarelly’s commitment to lightness and simplicity matches Caterham CEO Bob Laishley’s passion for maintaining the brand’s hallmarks.
“It’s definitely not going to be a Seven,” Laishley previously said of the EV. “But it will have all the characteristics that current Caterham customers know well: lightness, simplicity, agility and performance.”
He continued: “Like the Seven, it will have a steel spaceframe, but a different one, because they are easy to modify in production if necessary. It will have a six-panel aluminum or carbon fiber wraparound body: two sills, two you get more front and rear shell openings. It will be nicer and more modern than a Seven – those will be big points of distinction – and maybe have a roof. We’re designing it as a pure EV from the start, only rear-wheel drive, and it will be registered as the SVA rules”.
It is not yet clear whether Caterham will reveal a concept car or a pre-production prototype this year, but Laishley hinted at a plan to build the EV at a new factory, recently opened in Dartford, with larger volumes than the Seven and because they have a higher base price.
Caterham has not suggested an on-sale date for the new car, but VT Holdings CEO Kazuho Takahashi’s eagerness to see it in production suggests it could arrive as early as 2026.
Q&A: Anthony Jannarelly, Caterham Chief Designer
What attracted you to Caterham?
“A Caterham was the first car I bought when I moved to Dubai, and that was a bit of a surprise, because I designed a €3m supercar. [the W Motors Lykan]but really what I wanted to drive was this very light, back-to-basics retro sports car.”
Is it daunting to create an all-new Caterham model?
“If you’re expecting something like the Seven, it’s not. Even if you asked me to redesign the Seven, we wouldn’t know what to do, because the beauty of the car is that form follows function, so anything you try to add or modify is pointless. So it’s hard to try to analyze it too much. [The new car] It has to have some similarities in the experience it gives you and the overall design concept approach, but it can’t be anything like the Seven. That will be, perhaps, the hardest thing for some people to accept.”
