I picked my Caterham up on 1st April 2015 (no joke), so am officially 1 month into my ownership, I`ve spent most of my evenings in the garage giving it a thorough checking over, and fixing a few bits and bobs along the way, as well as picking up some bits on eBay and alike. I thought I`d add a blog post as these come up when you look at people's profile page, before I get into my 1st month highlights, I thought I'd cover my relevant car history:

1999 Caterham Super Sprint - Live Axle, 1600 Vauxhall, ex-Academy (2000) - Factory built for Mark Harrison of Greenwich, London, and subsequently sold on by Caterham Cars to a Cliff Moulder of Cheshunt, Herts in early 2001 and little used, I was 3rd owner from Jan 2008 to June 2010, and then passed on to Jim Riches. Other than spotting it in someone else's pictures from The Phoenix Inn, Hartney Whitney New Years Day 2013, I`ve not seen or heard from it since.

2001 Lotus Elise - S2 - one of the early Series 2 Elise’s, purchased to replace the Caterham, as I needed an everyday commuter, couldn't find a good Series 1 that wasn't sold by the time I`d called up. Used daily for 4 years (June 2010 to June 2014), when it left my care, due to a careless 4x4 driver and trailer. Time for a change…

2007 Mini Cooper S Convertible - current commuter wagon, which ticks the boxes of fun, without a roof, and 4 seats so i can take the kids out, and enables a ‘toy’ car to only be used when I want to, rather when I need to. Owned since July 2014.

2009 Caterham Roadsport - 1600 Sigma, ex-Academy (2009), kit build by Dean Carr, 2008 chassis, delivered in October 2008, registered in Jan 2009. Completed the 2009 Academy, and Winter Series, and then sold on to Simon Thomas of Guildford in early 2010, similar to my first Caterham, in original Academy spec, and little used. Original build sheet, and pictures provided by Dean Carr (have made contact) show original spec was with orange nose with black nose band and stripe, nose was replaced after incident in qualifying at Donington.

In my first month:

Trips out - 6

Miles - 200

little jobs -

• replaced boot cover poppers, added boot cover poppers to match all bases (2 missing in the middle section), added male headed poppers to front corners of boot cover (for tonneau/half hood)
• relocated rain light to centre of roll cage (had been offset)
• moved mirrors from SVA stalks to door mounts
• put rubber grommets into holes in passenger floor (lead weight mounting points I assume)
• sorted through box-of-bit that came with the car.
• Oh yes and a fair amount of cleaning up of various bits.

purchases -

• hood bag (didn't have one, but has full hood with cut out for side impact bar)
• tonneau cover (Academy spec with tillet pockets, and cage cutouts, need to fit popper bases though)
• half hood (Academy cage spec, essential item, the full hood is not likely to come out of its new hood bag any time soon!)
• set of Avon CR500’s (waiting to be fitted)
• black pack heat shields for cat and silencer (but in 2 minds over whether to polish up the existing or go black)