Cornwall 2026

Saturday, Sep 26, 2026 · 1990 words · approx 7 mins to read

The first week of September 2026 saw Jenny and I take a trip with some dear friends to Retallack in Cornwall. The trip was ostensibly for one of our party’s 50th birthday, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t also really looking forward to taking the Seven on its first big trip under my ownership.

At around 240 miles there, plus some drives scoped out during the visit, I expected to get another 600-700 miles with the car under my belt and experience a mixture of road, traffic and weather conditions that would let me accelerate getting to know it.

The weather was mostly excellent but there was enough rain, especially overnight, that I got plenty of experience putting the full hood on the car in order to keep it mostly dry. I still haven’t driven the car with the hood on at the time of writing, but I already know that I won’t enjoy it and would definitely like to get different weather gear for future touring.

I took the trip down with a friend, Jenny following later in the C-HR with a bunch of our stuff. I’d packed the Seven with just the very bare essentials—its full weather gear, a mini toolkit and glass cleaner—and honestly that wasn’t on purpose. I’d planned to pack a bit more but somehow completely forgot the combined battery jump pack and tyre inflator that I bought not long before the trip.

Everything else that wasn’t my friend or I was in the cabin with us: Beeline Moto II for navigation, plus a high-capacity USB-C battery pack just in case either someone’s phone or the Beeline needed a top-up. I’ll review the Beeline separately and just leave a quick note here that it’s fantastic and if you have a Seven you should get one.

I was ready for the lack of creature comforts in the cabin, and the esoteric way of getting and strapping yourself in, but it was my friend’s first time experiencing a Seven. I think his experience is best summed up as one of tolerance.

While the carbon Tillets have a smidge of padding, I start to get a sore bum after a couple of hours, and getting in and out is honestly a mission. I quite enjoy it now, clambering in and out through the top of the cage has a certain something about it, but I don’t think anyone else that’s been in it with me so far does, and you really have to have your wits about you and not forget anything before you do the harness up.

Then there’s the noise. We didn’t really say very much to each other for the 4.5 hours down there, other than when we stopped for fuel. Even creeping along in traffic with no road noise is loud, especially for me sat on the exhaust side of the car, and we both wore ear protection for the entire journey making it harder to talk.

It’s definitely one of the best aspects of the car for me because it lets me meditate by focusing on the task of driving, drinking in the sensations of the car and the myriad noises it all makes. There’s noise from the tyres, the whine from the straight cut gears in the gearbox, the wind noise outside and inside the cabin at speed, all the clunks from the diff at low speed; the list goes on and on.

Combined with everything else going on as you drive a Seven, at least for me where my ADHD is typically running completely rampant, it clears my mind and allows me to focus on really enjoying every drive. I love that aspect of the car.

We didn’t have to stop for fuel as often as I originally expected. I still don’t really have a handle on the fuel economy, and for the most part I don’t care at all, but on a tour-like drive where a big distance is being covered then fuel stops have to be at least partially planned for.

The fuel tank on an SV-chassis car is supposedly 41 litres but the fuel pickup and sender can’t get access to all of the fuel in the tank (why Caterham haven’t fixed that is staggering, but it’s a problem that still plagues cars on the production line in Dartford as we speak), plus the gauge is completely useless. I’ve now lost count of the number of times I’ve filled up with the needle in the red, close to empty, and only put somewhere between 20 and 25 litres in.

Putting the weather gear on was miserable. I still haven’t put the hood on in a way where all of the poppers have been in place with at least one always refusing to be pushed in. It’s as if the hood cover is just ever so slightly too small. I know it’s not and it’s down to how I’m putting it on, but it’s impossible for me and my hand strength to get every popper on.

One of the hood stick straps also snapped a couple of days into my ownership, and those straps are integral if you want to use the sticks at all, so my running theory is that I’m just not locating the hood sticks in the right place for the hood to sit on top and then be poppered down. I put the hood on every night because of the forecast and overall chance for rain.

The rest of the trip was magical with it because of the driving I was able to do. Cornwall is a fantastic place to go about the business of a spirited drive in a sports car, especially in early September when the kids are back at school after the summer holidays and the roads are a lot quieter.

Almost all of the non-trunk A and B roads between Truno and Bodmin are great (so everything that’s not the A30 really), and the coastal roads in and around Newquay, Perranporth, St. Ives and Padstow on Cornwall’s north coast are brilliant. I especially enjoyed the roads inside the triangle that you can draw with edges between Newquay, Padstow and Bodmin.

One of the things that really stood out was the surface quality compared to similar roads in West Sussex. The roads in Cornwall are generally very well looked after with minimal miserable surface damage and potholes. Most tarmac is pretty smooth, and with the ribbons of it laid over almost infinite sweeping curves, little hairpins and some really enjoyable elevation changes, I can’t wait to go back.

I had so much fun blatting between tiny villages on empty back roads, slowing down through them to take a breather before getting on it again between them, stretching the car’s legs in the sun as I continued to get to know it bit by bit.

If you’re a UK-based petrolhead of any kind you have to venture down there, ideally in a tiny lightweight car with a sequential gearbox that lets you grab a couple of clutchless high-revving flat shifts as you peel the car round a long curve, only to then crest a hill that leaves you with a clear view out across beautiful green countryside and then the bright blue sea.

Bar the frustration with the weather gear the car was mostly faultless on the trip and did everything I asked of it. I took another dear petrolhead friend out in it one evening and he absolutely loved it. When I’ve got a passenger in the car and I know they want me to give it the beans, I show them what I think is about 80% of the straight line performance, plus what I’ve currently discovered is a small fraction of the cornering performance.

Even nowhere near the car’s limits in any kind of turn, a Seven is amazing amounts of fun. It mostly just grips, stays flat, and goes. It reminds me a lot of the mechanical grip of my Clio 182, just turned up to 11 and with way less body roll. The Clio feels like it has infinite front-end grip with limits way past my talent, and the way PGM have set it up for me with the wide 185-section semi-slick fronts means it has a very positive front-end that gives me loads of confidence to push, because the car stays mostly flat and telegraphs any movement of the rear end with so much warning.

The rear end really needs to be provoked with a good stab of throttle after unloading it on the brakes, mid turn, in order to slither around, such is the grip dialled in by the car through the AR-1’s 205-section rears. I really enjoy that high amount of rear tyre and deliberate driver input to move the rear around on the car at the moment, especially on the road as I’m slowly getting used to it.

And there’s so much feel in the car for the driver. Every tiny imperfection in the road shows up in my fingertips, palms and bum in some way, and because I’m so tightly strapped in by the harness it then all starts to feel like I’m an integral part of the car, rather than just the pilot that provides inputs and then vague things happen afterwards.

Every tiny input registers and every part of the road and how the car travels over it is registered, with very little filter. It’s as close to the thrill of driving as I’ve ever experienced and the trip to Cornwall was a real eye opener to how enjoyable it can be on the right roads. It might be really heavily compromised from a touring and long-range comfort perspective because I can’t take much with me or do much more than a couple of hours behind the wheel at a time, but none of that really matters because of what it’s like when I’m enjoying it on a Cornish open road.

Easily the best fun I’ve ever had in a car in my life and I can’t wait to explore similar roads elsewhere in it next year, when it’s been put back together and the weather allows.