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(last edited April 10, 2003)
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Buying a 7
Budget
Caterham Sevens are not excessively expensive cars, though over the years the search for higher and higher performance derivatives has pushed prices correspondingly higher.
New
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- Cars begin at around £11,000 for an 8v Vauxhall engined Classic that you will build yourself, and rise to around £37,000 for a fully specified R500.
Used
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- Roadworthy cars are very rarely seen below the £6,000 mark
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- £7-8,000 is a common start point and This will typically buy a live-axle x-flow engined car that may be in need of work or may have been used in competition.
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- £10,000 will usually see Supersprint x-flows in good order, live-axle or maybe deDion and is the lowest mark that k-series cars are usually seen at (typically std. 1400s with 5spd gearbox). Vx engined cars are also sometimes seen at this price point but will usually have seen competition use.
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- £11-12,500 is k-series Supersport territory and cars with 6spd boxes are becoming available at this price point. Very good x-flows (Supersprints or higher spec) will be in this league too, as will a good selection of Vx engined cars. Zetec engined cars usually come up in this price bracket too, it often being possible to find higher powered derivatives than the other engine types, possibly owing to their "non-standard" UK Caterham engine spec.
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- £15-16,000 is the start point for the Superlight series, usually 1600 Supersports with no screen or weather gear. Well spec'd non-Superlight K-series cars will overlap here and good Vx engined cars will be available, often with uprated engines (200bhp or more).
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- £18,000 is a sensible budget start point for SLR spec k-series cars and very good Vx cars. Newer VVC engined Roadsport type cars start about here too, but aren't that common used.
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- £23-25,000 will see plenty of SLR cars, often with screen, weather gear and other desirable extras.
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- £28-30,000 is the start point for used R500s, however only handfuls are available at present.
Price brackets mentioned are rough guides only and represent typical start points or budget brackets. Cars obviously appear cheaper (occasionally) or dearer depending on many factors; age, miles, condition, how quickly the owner needs to sell!
It's fair to say that 1-2 year old cars are rare on the 2nd hand market unless the owner is trading in against another 7.
What to Look For
Condition is everything on a 7. It's rare for cars to do much more than 5k miles per annum, and often much, much less than this, so mileage is very rarely that high for a given age.
So when buying, you need to check out condition very carefully, not using a car regularly can be as bad for the car as using it all the time.
Fortunately 7 owners are usually a fastidious bunch, and as the cars don't have to be extortionately expensive to maintain, most cars should be pretty sound.
First tip is to ask for the service records and receipts and have a good thumb through all information to check the validity of the car's credentials. Most of us are anal in keeping records so check them out.
Definitely check out all MOT records (as applicable) and get in touch with the previous owner (if applicable). Also ask on 
Blatchat and the se7ens list - the club alone has about 3k members which must cover a good percentage of all owners!
However, the best piece of advice is to get yourself along to your local meeting
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