"Is the new R500 faster than a superbike?" I don't know, race it against a superbike and we might find out.

Great video guys, keep em coming!! How much air!! That was insane!

This would make a kickass car chase scene in a movie.

since the moment ive saw my first caterham, i have wanted one! geez these are just super cool little cars. Im not really one for bikes anyways. If i want to go super fast in a straight line, I'll def buy the R1 that i want but for driving on twists....give me this little firecracker of a caterham

lol....good video! Really does show how quick a caterham is! Fair play Steve!

That was pretty good! Laughing out loud. Both crazy. Thanks.

Nice run! All four wheels off the ground too!

@TedSe7en Yeah, I've heard those 7's are a half ton of pure fun! I've also heard good things about the Ariel atom..Never driven either one, closest thing I've driven to it was an elise, but it was the standard n/a variant, and a bit lacking in power. But it sure could carve up some corners!

one of the best test ive seen. bias?maybe,but fun as hell.

That must be great fun!! I want a go!

@speedcrazy94 Cornering speed is not a function of power to weight. It is the limit of total traction, the more traction, the more lateral G. Lateral force is proportional to the speed and inversely proportional to the circle diameter. So more traction means you can acheive either: a tighter turning circle at the same speed, or a higher speed through the same circle. Cars have about 8-10 times the total rubber on the road, so can come in hotter and exit faster from corners regardless of weight

light hearted vid well done :)

whahaha seems like you guys had some great fun. I love the pun in the end.

I've heard of a chap in Aussie who is building a lightweight Caterham with a Mitsubishi 4G63BT 2.0 litre turbo engine ex an Evo 8, but upgraded to 550 brake hp at the flywheel. Runs 25 lbs of boost which kicks in at only 2,900 rpm. Biggest problem is where to locate the enormous intercooler.

Nice vid! Thank you!

The road you mention is not in the Pyrenees but south of Massif Central. I don't know it but the area is good. The Pyrenees are enormous and between the French and the Spanish side you can find every kind of road challenge you want and much more besides. Speed Triple - handling, power, brakes (less ache on the 180s) - very quick on most roads. At the end of the day its always horses for courses - but for this test, we agree, the wrong horse (as I said in my first post tho, Dickson impresses).

@publicise what bike and what car do you have?

2.18 Fantastic......This Caterham really flies......

what be the time diffrent when both ride in difrent time ???? 13 second??

It's great video. But I'm still amazed how great Ducati rider was!!

@samr500 I tend to agree. Watch any track video of a supermoto and they outhandle superbikes. This is mainly due to their lightweight. This bike was also designed for alpine roads as well. Physics are in favour of 4 wheels making cars always potentially quicker. Motorcycles only have a weight advantage which is equates to good acceleration but because bikes have poor aerodynamics their upper speed and post 100mph acceleration is comprimised.

Crikey! How much air did he get at 2:20!! Love the R500

i have a robin hood caterham styled kit car and its absolutely gr8 fun also i went in a caterham r500 at autosport motorshow it waz amazin if u want gr8 fun out of ur car make sure u get 1 of these man there excelent its more fun thn any car or bike ive been on and av been on a few bikes aswell

That guy driving the ducatis knees were skimming the ground on each turn!

Right car, wrong bike. Road racing with what we used to call a "Scrambler" type of motorcycle. Should have given the rider a Panigale R. More HP, better brakes, and better tires. No denying the Caterham is quick, but it runs out of breath at the top end. The Ducati doesn't!

@Thinkle911 perfect explaination

do you think you would get mor fast on a track like theese with twice the HP on a bike?

Well put

The rules might ban TC in F1 but the teams don't follow it as they have ways around the TC checks. A rumour from the time claims that some team had the idea of using the pressure in the airbox as a reference for the car's speed. The FIA experts failed to spot that such a pressure meter was used not for telemetry but rather for traction control. When they worked this out, the FIA banned air pressure compensation but obviously a lot of other possibilities were there for grabs.

@twmapsion Power Commander. Electronic limitation in the FI solved.

Well said Sir.

If you look at a gp bike and there tyres then u can see that they have tons more surface area when lent over due to the shape of the tyres. Bikes need a serious racer and alot of setting up to make the difference. Bikes are also much more fun and its only tight corners they suffer on. Brakeing could be done quicker and later than that rider did it but it was on a road without run off. Anyone seen the "1098 vs car" vids on you tube on track. Most bikes do make most of the time on the straights.

High speed tracks demand high speed motorcycles. And a hypermotard is not meant to be used in this kind of track, it's rather about agility and tight turns, not high speed turns. I'm pretty impressed with the Caterham's start by the way!

@gengiz better suited for hilly road tracks also

@luckplat F1 certainly does have traction control or the cars would spin out all the time. they have removed a lot of the extra stuff by the ECU so the F1 racing is closer other wise it'd be only 2-3 teams winning probably only Williams

Perhaps I have tickets on myself, but I think I'm moderately handy on either two wheels or four. I like cars but I love bikes. As a general rule even a fairly slow bike will out accelerate all but the fastest cars. Some performance cars have very good brakes and will stop hard for lap after lap. Most don't. You can induce brake fade on a bike, but it takes some doing. Almost any bike will continue to stop well after most cars have had complete brake failure.

I Agree, fair comment

Ahhh the irony of Tim Dickson now writing and working for Autocar magazine!

@supersevenn I wasn't disagreeing with you but if you're going to make an argument at least make it watertight. It would not suprise me to hear that bikes are slow on Nurburgring but I have a feeling bikes are not uniformly slower. How do you think a car would perform on the Isle of Man TT circuit? I'm not sure.

if any of you have raced bikes and been to the track you would know that the supermotos turn alot quicker than a superbike I should know i ride and own a few and they always get me in the twisty sections as they are just more agile and lighter and thats why I think they used the 1100 supermoto this time as it was quite twisty

would have been much fairer to put that type of bike up against a Focus RS or something similiar. Its a good little bike (matching the Caterham on corner apex speed here) but with 90bhp from an air-cooled motor and very restrictive pipes as you can hear it's never going to keep up with a car that laped the Top-Gear test track faster than a Veyron is it?

@MrJRG97 I know right? Man those dudes were gunnin it

what does sod means in general?

looking at the track I think the Caterham would probably be slightly quicker than any superbike. A little bit more of a straight in there and could go the other way. Great video.

The 7:28 time you stated was done on the shorter 19,100m section rather than the full 20.832m.

@Ratava252 exactly :) also you have to remember, these guys have actually raced a millbrook.....on a bike.....racing a car......in front of the cameras......:)

great manual up the crest from the motard

The 7:28 R1 time was on the 19,100 Nordschleife (now set at 7:10) and the R500 on the 20,600m circuit. Looking at the times, the quick cars are much faster than bikes on the Nurburgring. Bikes will always have a power to weight advantage however cars will always have traction and aero advantages. Physics dictate that a car can be faster in all areas than any bike when taken to the extreme and I challenge anyone who disagrees. (I ride bikes and cars so I am not bias, just facts!)

SmartRsSoul: Actually, I think I'm right that the R500 has a slightly better Power to Weight Ratio than the Ducati. The R500 has a PWR of around 525bhp per tonne (better than even a Veyron) whilst the Ducati is almost bang on 500bhp per tonne (or 370Kw per 1000Kg). In fact the because the weight Ducati gives is a dry weight for the bike and Caterham is a wet weight (I believe) the PWR advantage the Caterham has is even greater. 2x fat wheels to put the power down is also very advantageous.

@liukang72 It would be the same outcome on this circuit.

everyone complaining the motard is too slow and an R1 would be better, when the R1 couldnt stand a chance in these tight corners. Supermotos, bikes mad for slow tight corners, couldn't win. But oh, "R1 would kill it on the straights" wow, youre right, this is unfair now.

Big deal you were racing against a dirt bike, try it against a Ducati super bike you would be nowhere

I expect that was originally so they where esy to make now they thing it's 'heritage' or something but you're right, for £30k It's really time to start thinking about down-force, aerodynamics and by extension aesthetics.) Perhaps more along the lines of the SR8 iwtyZosuPNE

@supersevenn That may be the case by a ZX-6R is only a mid-range bike. A ZX-10R has approximately 50% more power.

It doesnt really matter on those roads, almost all bikes above 100 hp are equally fast to 100 because of throttle limitations when you get to bigger bikes, that means you cant open the throttle as much because the bike would then "flip". So the hypermotard is quite good for the test. But if we did like a track test then more suitible veichles would be a 1098r and a Caparo T1, almost the same power/weight and race spec.

Best compromise - get yourself a threewheeler such as a Grinnall Scorpion. Handles and stops like a car and goes like a bike. Great fun.

sorry for butting in but just to point out another factor is that cars can slide or drift through the turns allowing it to keep more speed through tights corners, bikes cant really do that, except for supermotards.

Nice video

I believe that the R500 has a slightly better Power to Weight Ratio than the Ducati. The R500 has a PWR of around 525bhp per tonne (better than even a Veyron) whilst the Ducati is almost bang on 500bhp per tonne (or 370Kw per 1000Kg). In fact because the weight Ducati gives for the bike is dry and Caterham give a wet weight (I believe) the Caterham's PWR advantage is more than 25bhp per tonne. 2x fat wheels to put the power down is also a big help. Caterham R500 costs £36k (Sterling).

The 'test' was set up to favour the car - no doubt (tho I never mentioned gonads). A superbike would not beat the r500 v. easily here but easy power and torque count(re-read all my comments). I live near the Pyrenees which has v.many long 'Alpine' like sections (not short tracks like Millbrook), know the Alps fairly well as well as the Massif Central. Raced cars, know how fast something like the caterham can be on 'Alpine' road and how hard you work on a bike to keep up/stay ahead.

I know this is an old video, but it is still an interesting point of comparison today. Not so much in terms of enjoyment for the money, but simply as two different driver / rider focused toys, albeit very different sensations in the details. Obviously the average driver will always drive a car faster than the average rider can pedal a bike, especially under braking and corner entry. The R500 sounds utterly nasty, it's a bit of a beast - I think I'd actually rather bank on the Ducati for engine reliability though! And to that end, although the 1100 is (/ was) a wicked little hammer of an engine, it is still only an air / oil cooled twin. Even the 848 donk of the same era would have been a step up - should have got either one of the old Streetfighters instead of the Hyper. In fact a modern-day rematch with either of the current Streetfighter machines (or other another brand's equivalent) would be interesting.

in the tight course, Supermotos are pretty daamm quick especially with 1100cc

Okay, that's it. We need to see an Atom vs. Caterham comparison

Its in the braking that the R500 scores massively over a bike - Steve Sutcliffe emphatically says this in the video. You also have to have a very high skill level to beat a well ridden bike even in an R500. The driver here is Steve Sutcliffe chief editor at Autocar. He is also an experienced racing driver with real ability. Not many could have driven the R500 this well at Millbrook. Same with the bike - very good rider indeed but this Duke not the best challenge to the R500.

@gengiz If you ride and "own a few" you should know that this is NOT a supermoto! The Aprilia SXV550 is a supermoto, the Suzuki DRZ400SM at a stretch is one, the CCM R30 is one, this is a big heavy bike that is based on the Multistrada and is a fashion statement. I own a Multistrada and have ridden an HM and the HM is just as big and heavy as my bike. Not suitable for anything but posing! (The HM IS a good bike tho, just not for this test)

You did say people were fools to think bikes are faster yet I've given you a real world situation. Isle of Man is one instance and it's not a bike track - it's real world where 99% of these things are used. Thanks for a good honest debate.

@gengiz Definitely what you say is true. Proper SM's like the SXV 5.5 can carry faster corner speeds and transition laterally much faster than 1000cc race bikes (in fact I'd be willing to bet that an SXV would beat that hypermotard on this track). On any track with a decent back straight, though, this car would get murdered by a proper superbike. Then again you already knew that, lol... I'm just thinking out loud, really.

the bikes in corners story is bullocks , on a bike you have to lean in orderto get the center of gravety on the inside of yr corner , the faster you corner the further you must bring it in , and thats just limited on the angle the bike can lean plus that bit extra that a cyclist does with hanging his body inside . the amount of rubber on the ground and therefore grip is not important , as bikes have enough grip as long as they dont fall .

the rider is Tim Dickson from two magazine and he tests tires for continental

most new bikes noew have ABS and traction control now ;D so there are some electronic management systems for a start, let alone the slipper clutch that doesnt lock the diff, and electronic steering dampers to stop speed wobble so yer xD

The engine in this bike is a development of the 70's 900 SS's engine. It's an air cooled twin that wasn't considered powerful when it was new 30 years back. Compare its 90hp/200KG weight to a 160hp/210KG superbike, you can see that there's a bit of a difference. The answer to the question in the video title, is the new R500 faster than a superbike, is no, not even nearly, so autocar decided it would be better to put it against ducatis parts bin special.

@gengiz Except you really don't need quick flicking on this course. There are very few chicane-like sections, and a superbike has much better steady-state traction and straightline speed than a supermoto. This course could be roughly compared to isle of Man, and you don't see supermotos dominating there, do you?

I do not beleive at all about this video, but in any case I thing it is not possible compare emotions, and is this that the cars and motorbike give to riders. i love both machines.

the car is slightly faster in a straight line, as you expect against an an air-cooled V twin bike. the fact that the bike pulled away on some sections on mid corner speed alone is very impressive, shows how wrong the old cars will always be faster in the corners line is. better in the brakes maybe but not mid corner anymore

Under ideal conditions a bike and a car have more or less the same mid corner speed. Under less than perfect conditions, the car has an edge. The more unpredictable the grip, the bigger the edge. A car can go from max cornering left to max cornering right in about half a second, which no bike can do. The cars advantage gets bigger the higher the speeds get.

Hey dude am thinking of getting a Honda CBR1000RR so, but also am thinking of getting a Caterham R500, and also Bikes are for people who cant afford fast cars like Ariel Atoms, Caterhams, Westfields, ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini, Bugatti, SSC, Porsche and Radical.

great vid. this is not a superbike. it is a v-twin supermoto try the 675 daytona, which is stil not a superbike but does the job even better on the narrows .

Wrong, Caterham is a small scale manufactured car, they are abailable both as kits and as readymade cars. It fulfills all the legal requirements raised to new cars. It has a modern Ford engine that passes the emissions requirements, it has standard lighting, seatbelts, a roll bar, theft prevention devices (ignition key), solid brakes and steering. It has nothing to do with EU loopholes, they are also street legal in US and especially in UK.

I just thought id say look on the ducati site and your find the hypermotard has just won a mountain race with the s model. Its a good bike and it even competed with factory bikes too.

Do you need to use helmet when driving at public streets?

how much is a Caterham like that??

four wheels are always faster than 2 IN CORNERS because they can brake a lot later and turn in faster as they have more traction. of course i am not talking about a comparison between a truck and a moto gp bike and you can't really compare 2 wheels with 4. to be brief bikes are usually faster on a straight line and cars go faster through corners.

I think your find that bike could have gone a hell of a lot quicker. I've not met a car that can leave me through the corners yet. I was once on the back of a little ducati 600 and we were keeping up with one of these cars through all the turns quite easily. If I ever meet one that leaves me, then ill let you know.

this is awesome :P but i wonder whos having more fun? the driver or the rider?

that ducati is no superbike ! take a real bike like a 1199 but that car is fast! nice!

The 36K Caterham is a road-legal racing car, hand made to order. The 10K (not 100K) Ducati is a road-spec bike out of the showroom. Two professional drivers were used. Given Mr. Average has been driving a fwd car for the last 20-25 years, I sincerely doubt anybody can power oversteer through corners. This clip is shows what the producers wanted to show. Get an average driver and an average rider and the results will be very different.

in a track (as in a normal road....)a car generally turns very faster than any sort of bike...medium range-speed corners are the place where bikes lost less,or even gain something sometimes..but bikes don t have deportance..i make u a typical example,R-130(suzuka),an official moto GP bike goes all over it at 210...a normal FRcar like Z4 or 911...or 350Z i don t know..can make practically the same...a formula1 make it at 295-300....for a whole lap there M6 safety car spends around the same...

Well, fair is fair, it would make sense to have both the driver and rider professionals, able to push the limits of both car and bike safely.

On top gear they have the ariel atom stomping a cbr600rr on a track and the r500 cang hang with that.

@cavilli Yes, and the power to weight on the car is 1,92 kg per cv on the car, and 1,81 kg per cv on the bike. ;-) I think thats why autocar used the duke. And besides, supermotards are probably alot quicker than a superbike on that twisty roads.

The whole point of using that bike in the test is that it has been designed specifically to be fast on that type of road.

Super seven el auto mas lindo.

the guy on the bike is f-ing crazy! I kept picturing him getting flattened by that car.

I googled for the latest top speeds actually recorded at Catalunya Circuit. Last time I watched an F1 race I was bored to tears. Must have been Monaco or Hungary.

Bike magazines have answered the "Supermoto v Superbike - which is faster down a twisty road?" in the past. The superbike is always considerably faster. I would like to see a KTM RC8 or a 1098S or a 2008 Fireblade up against the Caterham. Great vid though guys!

@u941812 I know, but I was just thinking that the guy on the Motard, COULD have likely brought ANY bike. I mean its not as if the autocar guys were like "hey wanna come over for a car v bike shootout? And bring a HM not a proper superbike". This test is invalid anyway regardless of who made the decision to bring the HM. The GTR v 1098S test is much better

I agree. I still think the car would win, but it seems much more likely you'd run into a R1, or something else with about 160-170hp wanting to take you on. Of course to keep things fair, the bike has to use street rubber...

concur!

A Motard is a dirt bike with street tires, NOT a "superbike." the Duc Hypermotard is a crazy fun bike, a wheelie machine, but it is not a race bike. give it a try with any actual sport bike made for road course racing before you get cocky!

its kinda possible becuz the bike has cornering on his side and it takes less strain on the motor to get to those high rpms becuz theres less weight