New car news

16 October 2008 - 17:00

Caterham sell out

The world is going mental. All week, we’ve been giving you tips on how to avoid the credit crunch, so you can still keep your car, while simultaneously feeding yourself and your offspring.

But while we’ve been doing that, Ferrari has sold out of Californias till 2011, 100 people have been begging Aston for a One-77 and now Caterham has sold out of the Levante.
 
You can read about the car in the latest issue of Top Gear magazine, but in case you haven’t bought that already, we’ll tell you here. It’s a Caterham, with a massive V8 up front, good for 500bhp and twice the power-to-weight ratio of a Veyron. And it costs ‘from £115,000’. Bargain!
 
But to some people, it really is. OK, so only eight were built. But they’ve all gone, every last one of ’em. And those eight owners have to attend an obligatory two-day driving course before taking their new beasts out on the road. Seems wise.
 
Certainly wiser than spanking over £100k on a car that’ll have your bank manager/wife wincing every time you fire it up. That cost will steepen if you tick the ‘flappy paddle’ option box – by ten grand. That’s over twice as much as a Perodua Kelisa. JUST FOR THE GEARBOX.
 
So what’s going on?! Maybe it’s just a twisted form of panic-buying. Or maybe the whole financial crisis is a big, fat myth. Whatever, we like it.