COLLECTION: Mike Jay's British Passion

Mike Jay has a deep appreciation for Lotus and Caterham sports cars. We pay him a visit and he talks us through his focused collection of British cars. 

Words and pictures: Wilhelm Lutjeharms

It only takes a few seconds as you walk into Mike Jay’s garage to realise that his first love is the Lotus 7 and that he has lots of respect for the late Colin Chapman. He even designed his garage to house these cars (although not so many, he admits) and the metal beams in the ceiling to be able to carry a weight of up to a ton, should he want to remove and install engines in these cars. 

• Find your dream British classic here.

Although there are no original Lotus 7s here (rare cars these days), Mike has no fewer than three Caterhams - the modern interpretation of the 7 for the last 50 years. At the back of the garage is a small workshop where he can do some basic work. However, some of the jobs he has tackled are not so basic at all! 

This year marks 50 years since Caterham was founded, producing some of the most exciting lightweight sports cars available. The retired chemical engineer shares the story of how his passion started for cars in general and how it evolved into a love affair with these lightweight sports cars. 

“The 1996 Caterham (the one in the middle) I bought in the UK in 2001 from the Caterham dealer in the town as a second-hand car. It is fitted with the 1.6-litre, Rover K-Series engine mated with the six-speed gearbox. It is called a Roadsport Supersport. It develops 86 kW. In a car this light that is more than sufficient and it is also a narrow body. At that stage they hadn't started producing the wide bodies yet.

“Fortunately I had a double garage in the UK and I could park it inside, while the company car was parked outside. That said, it does also have its all-weather kit. When I bought it, it had around 14 500 km on the odo, and when I brought it to South Africa in 2006 it had almost 27 000 km on the odo. My wife and I took it up to Scotland, and over to Ireland. It is still my favourite of the five cars I own.”

Mike turns to the car parked against the wall and says, “I always wanted to build one myself though. In 2008 Caterham was just about to launch its R400 and it was available with a wide body, and that is exactly what I wanted. They asked me if I would be the guinea pig to build the first one from the kit. In 2007 I ordered it and in November of 2008 the kit arrived.”

By January of 2009 Mike had completed the car successfully, but when the day came to fire up the engine, it wouldn’t start. He tested the engine and electronics and realised there was no spark. 

“They accidentally sent me the ECU for the R300 model, so an exchange was done and the correct ECU was delivered. With the new ECU fitted, the car started the first time. 

“It is fitted with a 157 kW 2.0-litre, Ford Duratec engine and a six-speed gearbox. It is also an R400 Superlight as it is fitted with a significant number of carbon-fibre parts. It is also more or less the same weight as the Roadsport, I think the R300 is around 5 kg heavier."

As these things tend to happen, some cars really do find their owners, not the other way around, and the oldest Caterham in Mike’s collection he stumbled across whilst being on holiday.

“It was 2013 and we were traveling along the South Coast. We stopped to eat something in Wilderness. At the plot next door I saw a sail covering a car that looked like a Lotus 7 type of car. I was told the owner arrived from Zimbabwe with the car. I knocked on the door, he opened and kindly showed me the car. I checked the chassis number and it is was indeed a Caterham - a 1995 Roadsport 30th Anniversary Edition. It is fitted with a 1.4-litre, K-Series engine with a five-speed box and also in a narrow body.”

“When I was much younger and living in the UK, I always said that one day I wanted to own a Lotus 7. Then I moved to South Africa and family life started and then those thoughts go out of your mind. Fast forward several years later when I returned to the UK, and those thoughts and dreams returned.”

The other Lotus 7 type of car in his garage is a locally made Birkin. One of the main reasons Mike acquired this car is because he bought it for a good price in a package deal which included a sought-after small Honda Dax motorcycle. Mike calls them "opportunity finds". That was also the case with his 1986 Lotus Excel S.E. which he found in late 2019. Mike has done a lot of work on the car since acquiring it though.

Since Colin Chapman tried to use parts on his vehicles that were already used on other, more mainstream cars, it made the work that Mike had to do on the Excel fairly simple, especially in terms of finding parts locally as a lot of Toyota pieces were used in the Excel.

Mike uses his cars both on the road and on the track at Killarney Raceway. Over the years he has also met several fellow owners and they would sometimes head out together for breakfast runs. It is clear that the passion for these cars runs very deep.