The Rush Hour Rush

Recently, deep in the trenches of the internet, I read something along the lines of “Top 50 must-do things in Dubai”. I remember the ones that stick out, all the clichés: ride a camel, eat camel, go dunebashing in a Land Cruiser, smoke a shisha, visit an open souq... Well, here’s number 51 for them; drive an extreme sportscar through Dubai’s traffic.

Sure, I could’ve gone for the usual Italian, or if I wasn’t lazy, tried to bag a Koenigsegg, but since I received a phone call from Gulf Sport offering me its Caterham Roadsport for a couple of days, I figured it was easy money. (Not that they’re bribing us for a positive review, just that it’s usually up to us to source a car, since this is our job after all...)
 

Mad But True
After detailed instructions on how to use it, which made me feel like I was about to take my driving exam all over again, I managed not to stall, despite an extremely heavy and sticky clutch. This example was one of the first that Gulf Sport imported into the country and the engine’s freshly run in, but there’s no Salik. No biggie, I thought  myself, as I wasn’t planning on stretching its top speed on straights anyway.

Not that the top speed is impressive — it runs out of breath at about 196kph (still terrifying without doors, a roof and with your tush a hair’s breadth away from the road). Caterham prides itself on cornering speeds, road holding and steering precision, the tightest chassis as well as vicious acceleration. Naturally. The Roadsport weighs 550kg, so its Vauxhallsourced four-cylinder 1.6-litre engine means a healthy ratio of 272 horsepower per tonne. This is almost 20bhp more than the Porsche 911 Carrera 4S, and even further away from the BMW M3. Hence, you’ll be feasting on flies as you hurtle towards 100kph in 5.0 seconds, jaw dragging on the floor.

On the way from the collection point to some much-needed shade in front of the wheels office, I warmed the rubber through some twisties before setting off into the depths of Dubai just after work. In other words, rush hour. Our destination was Deira. Yup, I’ve got more than a few screws loose up there.

As motoring journalists, we often say the same thing every week in different words. We love mentioning how getting a fancy car started is a bit of a ‘ritual’. Um, just hold the brake and press a button marked ‘start’. Wow wee, what a ritual.The constant use of ‘ritual’ has diluted the impact of the word, so I shouldn’t use it here. But with the Caterham, the starting procedure really is a ritual.

First of all you don’t even get in, because there are things to do from the outside before you climb over the door. And I use the term door very loosely here; it’s a piece of leather held to the aluminium bodywork by nuts and bolts. (You can take them off for maximum exposure to the astonished eyes of the world, but then you lose the mirrors which are attached to those ‘doors’.)

Anyway, after you’ve taken the cabin cover off by unbuttoning it like a stubborn shirt, you fold it neatly and stow it in the boot. Then you insert the outside  ignition switch and turn it a quarter-lock. Only now can you climb aboard this SS lunatic. Once you adjust the surprisingly cosy seats and finish grappling with the four-point harnesses, you need to get back out again and go in the house to retrieve the steering wheel which you’ve forgotten on the kitchen counter. Yup, it’s a proper removable racing Momo, so you lock it in place and insert the key beneath the dash. Don’t forget the immobiliser.
OK, all set now, hold the clutch pedal down and then hit the coveted ‘start’ button. Clatter, clatter, clap, whap, burp, clang, kerplunk, WHOOARRRHHOORHHAAHHRR, and then settle down at an unstable idle, the needle bouncing between one and one-half thousand rpm. Now that’s a ritual. 

The car doesn’t just lack bodywork, the rest is incredibly sparse too. There is no traction control, no ABS, a manual gearbox with the stubbiest gear lever around (it’s actually embedded into the transmission tunnel in a hole), no indicator stalk (it’s a non-retracting switch), no AC, no cubby hole, no ashtray or cigarette lighter and don’t even think about cup holders.

If you’re a passenger, you can light your Marlboros on the blistering exhaust pipe running along the side of the car. The driver shouldn’t smoke anyway — the task of handling this thing requires full concentration. Sure, the steering reads my thoughts and the wheel communicates every chip and stone, but the light weight and 150bhp means that power delivery needs to be gradual.
Sudden inputs will send the tail fishing
for the nearest lamp post. Oh, and there are also no carpets, because carpets are for wussies.

All you need is at your disposal and if you think anything’s missing, you’re the one missing the point. Squeezing through the tiniest gaps in traffic and edging forward in bumper-to-bumper traffic is horrific, though.

At one point I got out and refused to get back inside, as the sun was still baking me alive while I was strapped to a half-tonne hyperactive Jack Russell. Once the relentless daytime heat took a break, the Caterham could be enjoyed in all its minimalist glory. Darting through Dubai with a non-working speedo isn’t the best idea, but as long as you keep it at around 3,500rpm in the fifth and final gear, you’re safely below 120kph. You don’t need super speeds anyway, just work the extremely heavy gear changes routinely and keep the engine zinging where it’s happiest, because at low revs you’ll be jerking along uncomfortably.

So traffic is a problem, we realised as our blast through Shindagha tunnel turned into a Deira crawl. Inching through Naif souq, the Caterham was not in its element, but the onlookers didn’t care. Staring was free, and everyone took part. No other car, including the KTM X-Bow, has ever attracted so much attention. But touching wasn’t allowed, as we were afraid one of the Caterham’s flimsy parts would fall off. It’s not the best-built machine ever and although the bronze-welded chassis feels really rigid, everything attached to it got there without the use of high-tech robots.
It did make its name as the ultimate kit car but it’s apparent the Caterham isn’t ashamed of its heritage. And when you consider just what extremes you can have for this price, you won’t mind.

As we made the rounds through Deira and ended with a Jumeirah Beach Road cruise, roundabouts and right-angled turns became my own mini Monza Parabolica and Monaco Tabac Corner. Drifting this car is straight out of the nursery school of driving; just feather the throttle while steering minutely towards the outside of the bend. But as the speeds rise, so does the skill level required and at the limit, the underpowered Roadsport requires as much respect as supercars ten times the price. It’s one of those easy to learn, hard to master things.

The closely spaced pedals also make it ideal for toe-and-heel practice and left-foot braking. The middle pedal is perfect for this, as a driver’s usually over-sensitive left foot easily gets to grips with the ultra short travel of the brake, as well as its abrupt and effective service. Tyres also play a massive role, despite their small diameter (14in) and width. Grip is phenomenal as long as you’re not flat on the gas through the turns. I’ve never felt more in control of a car, and I’ve never experienced a car more dependent on my input, and my input alone. Driving a Caterham well will put you at ease with pretty much anything you can bring to the track.

I’ll quickly forget my experience of sweating through traffic in the Caterham, grappling with the unassisted steering and battling with the clunks of the gear changes. But that short blast alone on the outskirts of Dubai before I set off for Deira, that’s the one that’s going to stick in my mind. Road, wind, Caterham… you really don’t need much more than that. But unless you can find an empty, and more importantly curvy, stretch of blacktop regularly such as the one I used, or have access to a racetrack every weekend, I don’t see the point.
Caterham’s catchphrase is ‘designed  for racing, built for living’. May I suggest  a rethink? Designed for racing, built  for racing.