The modern car is a lie. All you’ve been told about the necessity of power steering, traction control, heated seats and Radio 4 muttering away as you cruise down the M6 is false. Society does a great job of filtering most of our experiences through several layers of abstraction, and almost every modern car reflects this philosophy. Carefully designed to protect us, and keep us comfortable and safe as we get from point A to B, modern vehicles are in a balancing act; how to navigate through the natural world without spending too much time in it.

I say “almost” every modern car, because there are vehicles in production today which do away with familiar luxuries in order to capture some of the original rawness and thrill of motoring as it used to be done. It’s the simple magic of using exploding gas to propel a human object through beautiful surroundings at thrilling speeds. One such vehicle, and perhaps the archetype, is the Caterham Seven sports car. And we had two of these at our disposal over a glorious English summer weekend.