Corven Group's private equity arm, Corven Ventures, has bought Caterham Cars, the maker of lightweight sports cars that can be used both on the roads and for racing. Caterham sells more than 500 cars a year and has a turnover of some £15m. The purchase price is not known.

Corven is backing a team led by Ansar Ali, who will be managing director, and the operations director, Gideon Wigger, both former Lotus executives.

Caterham is being sold by the Nearn family, which acquired the rights to the Lotus Seven sports car from Lotus 30 years ago and developed it as the Caterham 7.

The cars sell for between £13,000 and the "upper £20,000s", according to a spokesman. The outgoing managing director, Simon Nearn, who will remain with the company as a consultant, welcomed the deal, saying: "For a number of years we have been seeking inward investment to support the ever-spiralling costs of new product development."