I would drive 500 miles and then 500 miles more....

Well here we are, exactly one month after I picked up the car from the post-build check and IVA test, and I'm well pleased.

King's Worthy, north of Winchester

500 miles on the clock, and only a couple of minor niggles with the car. There's a small oil leak from the gearbox, which is the subject of some detailed discussions on the Lotus 7 club website (this appears to be due to a design flaw on the bell-housing that couples the Ford Duratec engine to the Sierra gearbox. Some detailed pictures here: https://profiles.google.com/davisjimjo#davisjimjo/photos/5622531303529772385).

Apart from this, I need to sort out a bit of farting from the engine when I blip the throttle, but that's about all - it's a great, great car and a frighteningly brutal drive!

Here's a short video - Starting in Sherborne St. John, driving past The Vyne house, to Bramley:

(Originally shot using a GoPro HD Hero camera at 720p50 resolution with H.264 encoding. Uploading to the blog has degraded the quality rather a lot, I'm afraid...)

I'll be posting more interesting photos and videos as they turn up during the summer...

Stop press: I've just got back from an excellent blat with the 7 club. It was a beautiful summer Sunday morning, and a great early-morning drive. From Basingstoke we took the country lanes past Stockbridge, then across Salisbury Plain to Compton Abbas airfield, just south of Shaftesbury in Dorset. There's a good little restaurant there, and whilst we gobbled up a full English breakfast we were entertained by a Tiger Moth and various microlights buzzing around our heads.

Quite a collection of petrolheads had turned up for the brekkie: In addition to 30 Caterhams, there was a motley collection of large motorbikes, a beatiful blue Lotus Europa Twin-Cam, a Healey 3000, an MGC, and various other interesting pieces of machinery.

After a second cup of coffee it was back in the cars for a blast to Fordingbridge, then through the New Forest to Romsey, then Winchester and back home again. What a great, great drive - I cannot think of anything better to be doing on a summer Sunday!

Hope the weather is like this for the rest of the summer.... I've got to book up the first 1000 mile service at CC pretty soon, and I'm betting there will be quite a few more miles under the wheels before the winter recess.