At long last, Caterham is bringing its Ferrari-beating Seven to the United States

By Peter Braun Published January 3, 2014

Rejoice performance fans! The Caterham Seven is coming to the United States! The British sports car manufacturer reported yesterday that it will be bringing its astounding super-light sports car to the U.S. market via its new distributor, Superperformance.

This is fantastic news for anyone who loves track driving, or just driving like you are on a track. After all, very few things are better for spirited driving than a Caterham Seven.

The top end model coming to the States is the Seven 620R, which comes with a supercharged 2.0 liter Duratec Ford four cylinder good for 315 horsepower … in a car that weighs 1200 pounds. That means that the Seven is good for 0 to 60 in just 2.8 seconds. That’s every bit as good as another British performance car you might have heard of: the McLaren P1. And it costs less than tenth what the McLaren does.

Oh, and straight line performance isn’t even what the Caterham Seven is all about. These cars are built to handle, and they do. Because of their extremely low weight, and excellent suspension set up, Caterhams can out-handle just about anything that is not a purpose-built racer.

The downside of all this, at least for most people, is that the only way that these cars can be legally sold in the United States is for them to be sold as kit cars. That’s why Superperformance, a kit car manufacturer, is getting the distribution contract. So the only way to buy these cars is by getting them as a rolling chassis and then assembling them yourself … or paying Superperformance to assemble it for you.

Still, though, for all that performance, a few months in the garage might just be worth it. After all, with a Caterham, not only can you thrash just about anything else out there, you can even say that you built it.

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Peter is a freelance contributor to Digital Trends and almost a lawyer. He has loved thinking, writing and talking about cars…

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