Double-the-power V8 Caterham

The Caterham RS ‘Levante’ is fitted with a compact but powerful 2.4-litre V8 supercharged engine pumping out an awesome 500bhp

Caterham has built a supercar-rivalling version of its two seat sports car with double the power-to-weight-ratio of a Bugatti Veyron and called it the RS ‘Levante’.

The Caterham RS ‘Levante’ is fitted with a compact but powerful 2.4-litre V8 supercharged engine pumping out an awesome 500bhp.

But because the Caterham RS ‘Levante’ tips the scales at just 520kgs, it has around 1000bhp per tonne to play with, compared to the 520bhp per tonne of a Bugatti Veyron.

All this power enables it to cover 0-60mph in less than three seconds. Its top speed is electronically limited to 150mph.

The ‘Levante’ has been built for Caterham by RS Performance, a small engineering house who offer Caterham owners custom built cars, and who claim to “turn imagination into reality”.

From the outside it looks like a modern interpretation of the classic Caterham Seven, and the main changes are to its lights, wheelarches and wheels.

The single, traditional headlamps have been replaced by two rows of three small spotlights and the wheelarches are now much wider to accommodate the grippy racing wheels needed to deploy 500bhp to the tarmac.

A front spoiler has sprouted from the nose of the Caterham for the first time, to provide greater grip and stability at high speeds.

RS Performance has fitted traction and launch control and the Caterham has been decked out in carbon fibre parts to save weight.

Only eight ‘Levante’ will be built, and with a price tag of £115,000 it will cost more than twice as much as the current Caterham range-topper.

Each car is hand built, and there is a 12-week waiting time after an order has been placed.

View more pictures of the Caterham RS Levante