Caterham Group Announces Graham Macdonald As New CEO Of Caterham Cars

Caterham Group, the parent company of Caterham Cars, Caterham F1 Team, Caterham Composites and CTI (Caterham Technology & Innovation) has today confirmed that Graham Macdonald, previously CFO of Caterham Cars will step up to the role of CEO after current Chief Executive Officer Ansar Ali leaves the business by mutual consent.

Graham has played an active role with Ansar in helping create Caterham Cars into its modern-day guise as a core element of the Caterham Group and will now lead Caterham Cars as CEO.

Ansar will leave his post as CEO after leading Caterham Cars following a management buy-in which assumed control of the business in 2005 from the Nearn family who originally founded Caterham Cars. Ansar oversaw a program which initiated a fundamental shift in the engineering focus of the business, a move which revitalised the legendary Seven range. He also oversaw the long-term stability of Caterham Cars, building on its historic spirit of innovation, entrepreneurial endeavour with a core motorsport base and dedicated to the notion of serving the ‘unserved’, making racecar performance accessible to everyone.

Ansar has now decided to move on to new challenges and Caterham Group thanks him for the integral role he played in building Caterham Cars into a globally respected automotive brand and helping form Caterham Group in its present-day guise. Tony Fernandes, Caterham Group Chairman, said: “I want to take this chance to thank Ansar for everything he has done for the Caterham brand over many years. Without his leadership Caterham Cars would not be the world renowned, profitable business it is today and we would almost certainly not be working under the Caterham name if he had not initiated the discussions with us that led to the enviable position Caterham finds itself in today.

“Now we move on to the next phase of the expansion of Caterham Group and Caterham Cars. Graham is the perfect person to take over and lead the company and his experience and dedication will help us make a smooth transition into the next chapter of the Caterham Cars story.”

James May on the Caterham R500

caterham-r500-superlight-inv-hood

Caterham is quick to quote Chapman’s old mantra that power makes you fast on the straight bits, but lightness makes you fast everywhere else. The R500 weighs about the same as a late Seventies F1 Lotus, which can be expressed mathematically as the square root of sod-all.

Head over to the Top gear website to read James Mays full review of the Caterham R500.

[via Top Gear]

Powersliding a Seven

As the proud owner of a Seven clone I have been keeping an eye out for Seven related videos and this one is perfect advertisement for the car. Track4Fun, who are track day organizers and the official Caterham importers for Italy posted this wonderful in-car video of some Caterham owners powersliding their cars around a European racetrack. Hit play to see just how much fun it is to drift a Caterham R500 on a cold winter morning. The second video shows what occasionally happens when you get a little too ambitious with the throttle

[via Axis of Oversteer]