Not that it had needed much in the way of options, which is a good thing when the list price comes in just short of thirty grand. Carbonfibre, it has to be said, doesn't come cheap and there's a whole load of it as standard (nose, wings and dash), along with the very racy Stack instrument panel, slippy diff, a six-speed gearbox, composite race seats with harnesses, Momo steering wheel, uprated front brakes and dry sump system. Oh, and not forgetting the 200bhp, throttle-bodied version of the MG X-Power 1.8-litre K-series tucked under the louvred aluminium bonnet.

To that little lot, all we needed to add was paint (deep red always seems to work well with black and carbon), an interchangeable aeroscreen/windscreen, an FIA roll bar, and a battery master switch. Finally we couldn't resist the lure of the ΂£725 upgrade to lightweight magnesium wheels, which brought the final tally to ΂£32,575.

And so R400 BAD (Caterham's choice, not ours) arrived at Evo Towers. In the early days it was pretty hard to prise the keys from Harry's mitts; apparently his kids would be devastated if he came home in anything that didn't do doughnuts... But eventually the rest of us got a turn. I couldn't stop chuckling about the manic full-throttle charge and the short-gearing that gives you the same kick in sixth as it does in first. Chee couldn't get over the pops, bangs and bursts of flame on over-run, Allan P waffled something about hanging the tail out while Andy just kept moaning that his boots were too big for the tiny footwell.

Next on the agenda was an evoactive weekend of trackdays, Silverstone on the Saturday, followed by Snetterton on the Sunday. evoactive manager Roger Green took BAD along, tucked into our very smart new Brian James trailer and dragged to both venues behind our Vivaro van. The plan is to use the R400 at all events for high-speed passenger rides, and two of our drivers, Clio V6 racer Rick Pearson and BTCC regular Phil Bennett monopolised driving duties. They loved it, though Pearson inflicted its first flesh wound, hitting a stray marker cone and ripping one of the rear wings off a couple of its mountings.

That should be easily fixed, but for now it's held in place by tank tape and we'll probably leave it that way until it goes in for its first service, which isn't far off. With the rigours that we'll be putting the car through, we will be taking the precaution of having it serviced every 3000 miles. Next on the to-do list, though, is to tailor the handling to our tastes, and to do that we'll be with the experts at Hyperion Motorsport. We'll also be monitoring the performance and life of the Avon CR500 tyres and discussing the findings with the guys who designed them. That means logging every mile, every trackday - and every doughnut, Harry.