Caterham Engineers Built A Seven 170 From Scratch In Under Six Hours In A Pod 450ft In The Air

A few days ago Caterham announced an interesting challenge: a team of engineers would build a Seven 170 from scratch in under six hours at a altitude of 450ft (137m) at the British Airways i360 pod in Brighton, UK. The attempt was scheduled for September 30th, and as it turns out, they made it.

The build process of a Caterham would take one person 100 hours to finish, but the experienced engineers managed to complete the car’s assembly in under six hours. Unfortunately, the British firm didn’t release a timelapse video which would be awesome to watch.

Visitors were able to watch the whole process while enjoying a 360-degree view of the south coast and the English Channel. According to the British firm, this is the highest known height a car had ever been built.

See Also: Caterham’s Lightest Seven Ever Weighs Less Than A Bugatti Chiron’s Engine

The “highest pop-up dealership in the world” event was organized to celebrate the launch of the lightest model in Caterham’s history. The Seven 170 weighs a little over 970 lbs (440 kg) and comes fitted with a Suzuki-sourced turbocharged 660cc three-cylinder engine producing 83 hp (61 kW / 83 PS) and 116 Nm (86 lb-ft ) of torque. The model is available in the normal 170S guise,and in the track-focused 170R – both offered as a complete kit or factory-built, starting from £22,990 ($31,063).

In an attempt to show how lightweight their new model is, Caterham’s press release states that the tower and British Airways i360 pod are weighing over 1,200 tonnes, which equals 2,727 Caterham Seven 170s, or 200 elephants. So doing the math, an elephant weighs the same as roughly 13-14 examples of the car.

Caterham Cars CEO Graham Macdonald, said: “We set the engineers a daunting challenge building the car at such a height, but we had faith they’d complete it – and they did. This will certainly go down as one of the most interesting and memorable places we’ve ever built a car. We hope the public who came down to watch the build enjoyed their first sighting of our lightest ever production car – the Seven 170.”