Dan and his Caterham Super 7 Hayabusa. Click the image for a larger view. Photo by Katie Eubanks

Fast cars have been a passion for Dan Blumenthal since he was a little kid. He inherited the bug from his father, and was reading Road &Track magazine at age 7.

On Tuesday, in addition to his partnership in three of Jackson's favorite restaurants (BRAVO!, Broad Street and Sal & Mookie's), Blumenthal, 46, became the proud owner of a shiny black Caterham Super 7 Hayabusa, which traces its lineage back to famed Lotus auto designer Colin Chapman and Great Britain.

Blumenthal's car is the only one of its kind in the U.S.

"Colin's theory was to build small, light sports cars that were agile and fast," Blumenthal says. In the 60s, Chapman's cars were called Lotus Super 7s. Chapman sold the Super 7 rights to Caterham.

"It's a kit car. They build the chassis, and you buy the chassis and the wheels and all the internals from Caterham," Blumenthal says, and an authorized dealer—he went to Super 7 Cars in British Columbia—puts the car together, or, he said, you can build them yourself. Blumenthal says he chose Super 7 Cars because they use motorcycle engines instead of car engines, which cuts about 300 pounds from the total weight of car.

Blumenthal says the Hayabusa, which boasts a serious 255 horses under the hood, weighs only 1,050 pounds. "It's an incredible power to weight ratio," he says. The little speedster can hit 100 mph in a seven or eight seconds, and has a top speed of "only" 150 mph. "It's designed to be driven on the street and on the race track," he said.

Racing isn't foreign to Blumenthal, and he trains high-speed drivers for the Porsche Club of America in his spare time in exchange for track time. He raced a Porsche as an amateur in the late 90s in road races, but says the restaurant business doesn't allow him much time for racing. Nonetheless, he'll make time to really stretch out his new baby.

"I've already had it to about 140," he says. "It gets there so fast. … To push the car the way it was designed, I'm going to have to take it to the track, that's obvious. That's where I'm going to see what it can really do, and what I can do in it."

In comparison to the way he and his car can perform, daily driving in Jackson, Blumenthal says, can be a bit frustrating. "I move a little quicker than most people just normally," he says.

Previous Comments

ID

149759

Comment

I don't know about the rest of you, but I want a ride ... and not at the speed limit!

Author

Ronni_Mott

Date

2009-07-17T13:38:45-06:00

ID

149761

Comment

Ride no, drive it is what I want to do.

Author

BubbaT

Date

2009-07-17T13:52:05-06:00