Caterham has announced plans to open the world’s highest car dealership 450 ft (approx 137 meters) above ground in the coastal city of Brighton, England.
The pop-up store will be based in the British Airways i360 pod will open to celebrate the new Caterham Seven 170; the company’s lightest ever production car. It’s the first time a car has been inside the pod.
At 531 ft, the British Airways i360 is taller than the London Eye, Big Ben and the Tower Bridge. The platform offers stunning, 360-degree views of the South Coast and the English Channel.
Aside from launching it, Caterham will also deploy its team to build the Caterham on the platform in just six hours. It’s incredibly challenging as it requires about a 100 hours for one person to build the car. Caterham said the publicity stunt serves to showcase a cool part of Caterham vehicles – that you can build it yourself.
Caterham Cars CEO, Graham Macdonald said, “This is our lightest ever product so we wanted to launch it in a memorable way. We certainly feel opening the world’s highest car dealership in the British Airways i360 does that while also bringing to life how light the car is.”
The Caterham Seven 170 is powered by a turbocharged 660 cc Suzuki engine with 86 hp and 116 Nm. It may not sound like much but Seven 170 is quick enough to go from 0 to 100 km/h in just 6.9 seconds – quicker than your standard 320i Sport.
That’s because the Caterham Seven 170 is actually a feather on four wheels; it weighs just 500 kg! This gives it a power-to-weight ratio of 170 hp/tonne, hence the name Seven 170. With lighter optional body parts, the Seven 170’s weight can be further reduced to just 440 kg, for an even higher power-to-weight ratio of 190 hp/tonne.
Experience driving purity with the Caterham 7, now in Malaysia! Read about it here!
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