We are Chris and Maggie Alston, members of the Caterham & Lotus 7 Club of Great Britain since March 1998. This website was launched back in 2002 to document the life and times of our Caterham 7 and has since grown immeasurably, with over 21,000 'hits' and still going strong!
In 2021, after 20 years of touring abroad, we purchased a Mazda MX5 to retire the Caterham from touring duties and to develop it more for competition use. This website therefore now also includes the holidays we have had in the MX5 and other places of interest that we have visited.
Our Caterham story started in February 1998, when Maggie hired a 7 for my birthday, resulting in the purchase of our own 7 on 6 February 1999. It was first registered on 1 January 1993 and we became it's 4th owners. It was then a standard 1700 Supersprint, but over the years it has been upgraded to a higher specification. Between October 2007 and May 2008, a major rebuild was undertaken and a further upgrade became necessary after the x/flow engine 'let go' in July 2010 whilst touring in Andorra. Over the winter of 2010/11, a Raceline Zetec engine was installed and in the winter of 2011/12, the fuel system was upgraded from Weber DCOE 40s to Jenvey throttle bodies. In 2015 it was rebuilt again following an accident in Switzerland.
The 7 has clocked up just over 76,200 miles since it's been in our possession and over half of those miles have been touring in France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg and Andorra.
*** Click here for Recent Updates ***
I have recently self-published a book on Amazon
celebrating 25 years' ownership of our Caterham 7.
The idea came to me after Chris and I had celebrated our 25th Wedding Anniversary on 6th March 2024. We had clocked up 25 years' ownership of our Caterham on 6th February 2024 (that's how Chris remembers the date of our wedding anniversary a month later!), so I thought it would be nice to have a memento of the occasion in the form of a selection of photos from places we have visited in our Seven, both in the UK and Europe, the sprints and hillclimbs we have competed in and other events we have attended during that time. For a link to my book, please click the book image above.
To go to other parts of our website, please click on the section tabs below:
History of the 7 C&L7C Activities Low Flying Magazine Track Days Sprinting & Hillclimbing Touring MX5
Other Activities Motorsport Technical Data Chronology Rebuild Zetec Jenvey/Emerald Swiss RTC
What they said... Seven Paraphernalia Models Books Miscellaneous LEGO® 25 Years About Us
This website was last updated on 19th February 2025 All rights reserved © 2002-2025 Chris & Maggie Alston