THROWING your sportscar key fob on the coffee-bar table is so old hat. Throwing your MOMO sportscar steering wheel on the bar — now that’s cool.

One of the many great things about the blindingly fast Caterham R300 SV is that, Formula One style, the steering wheel is removable. It is also the ultimate anti-theft device and makes getting in and out just that little bit easier.

The R300 SV is convertible motoring at its purest, noisiest and most uncompromising. The car is shatteringly quick. It is a tiny two-seat vehicle that appears to have time-travelled here from the past, its motoring DNA linking directly to the Lotus Seven of half a century ago. It is spindly, features wheels that stick out, bicycle-style mudguards, frog-eye headlamps and flapping, plastic half-doors. You half-expect a lothario Spitfire pilot, all moustache and club tie, to be driving. It looks like a mistake. Until it gets going.

All that spindliness and bare metal means that it weighs only 525kg, a truly anorexic figure compared with today’s lardy cars loaded with power steering, electric windows and CD players. The R300 has no luxuries and little weight.

Which means that the 160bhp from the 1.8-litre Rover K-Series engine is enough to take the Caterham from a standstill to 60mph in well under five seconds. A claimed top speed of 130mph is academic because the car’s horrendous aerodynamics make even 80mph hideously noisy and uncomfortable.

To be brutally honest, there is much hopelessly wrong with the R300 SV. The clumsy folding roof is a throwback to the soft-top motoring of yesteryear, a mousetrap of poppers and crude metal framework just waiting to take your fingernails off.

The wipers are primitive and barely functional and the “doors” resemble a Blue Peter yoghurt-pot construction gone wrong. Getting in and out is impossible with any dignity and, with the roof in place, nigh-on impossible for my 6ft 5in frame.

But none of that matters. The R300 is not built to make life easy. It is built for out-and-out, stomach-churning performance. And it delivers with lightning acceleration and extraordinarily direct steering. Just a touch on the MOMO steering wheel and the car reacts, brilliantly so on the track or winding roads. The gear lever is possibly the shortest in the world, a four-inch link to a six-speed gearbox that is fast and very accurate.

Modern cars serve to numb the senses. Convertibles go some way to bringing sensation back to motoring. The R300 peels off your nerve endings entirely by building expectations and then delivering. Just getting the car started is an adventure. Having battled the roof to a standstill and stashed it in the tiny space behind the two seats, you open the primitive “door”, then step in, stand on the seat, shimmy down into position, fasten the steering wheel into place, then buckle up the four-point harness.

You then unbuckle the harness because otherwise you cannot reach to get the key in the ignition, which is ingeniously placed out of sight behind the fascia. Hit the starter button and all is forgiven. The engine erupts into life — frenzied life at that — as you press the accelerator.

The driver sits with legs straight out, almost with your backside, a few inches above the tarmac, as near the car’s rear as possible. Surprisingly, there is plenty of leg, shoulder and arm room. At first it is unnerving to be seated so low, your head coming only halfway up the tyres of trucks and buses.

To get the most out of this car, you really need to be in a truck-free zone and out on the track, which is why Caterhams are so popular with racers on a budget. It is also a favourite with schoolboys. I thought the removable wheel was cool, but neighbours’ children thought that the whole car was cool and a steady queue formed at my front door asking: “Can I have a go in your car, Mister.”

CATERHAM R300 SV

ENGINE: 1.8-litre Rover K-Series producing 160bhp and 130lb/ft of torque, driving the rear wheels through a six-speed manual gearshift.
PERFORMANCE: 0-60mph in 4.7sec and top speed of 130mph
ECONOMY: 30mpg combined.
PRICE: £25,805.