What are your thoughts? Obviously, the 997 will be the more polished road-going car but the new Exige S (220 horsepower supercharged version of the Exige) is going to be one hell of a fun ride.

Every year, I kick around buying a Lotus.

 

I rented an Exige for a lapping day last month while my GT3 was in the shop. It is a blast! A way different car and the strategy for getting around the track is totally different. Not to mention getting in and out of the car. If you can swing both... do it.

 

If I could swing both, I wouldn't have made this thread.

 

Kit car vs real car. Enough said.

 

Lotus. If you want a pure driver's car and track car; anything else this side of a GT3RS is just a compromise. Keep the 997 if you're happy driving a luxury GT and don't really want a car that's a lot more track focused.

 

Mr Bonus - sorry to go off-topic, but were you active on Evo boards?

Back on topic, the Exige is too narrow-focused to be a road car for any period of time.

 

Yes, that was me.

 

I have always had this internal strife of a track car for the street, and I always thought that would be perfect. Who needs all the amenities of a GT for daily use? You know what? I do. I need to hear the phone in the car. I need to not get a headache from the Nvh. I want to hear my wife or my boy speak while in the car with me. I DO want to hear the radio.

So I found that the best plan was a track car (cheap though - no reason to have a 100k track car, unless 100k is 5 dollars to you) and a daily driver high performance car.

 

if you track A LOT get lotus if you are remotely concerned with consumables. buring 20k in consumable a year on 997's is pretty easy.

if you drive on street, lotus is ok, but not great.

i had elise, wonderful toy, but it's not a car. on track it just as fun as GT3, a different type of fun but fun nevertheless. if you can only have one car get 997. if you have multiple cars, get lotus (in addition to a prosche).

 

Purpose built is nice, but I've not heard very good reports from people that actually bought a Lotus. Seems like everyone I had contact with in the E46 M3 world that bought one got rid of it soon thereafter. It may handle like it's on rails, but pretty slow around the track compared to E36 and E46 cars well driven. When one would show up at the track, one of my friends would say "Look out, that Lotus is going to be lapping you..." and the opposite would always happen - I'd be patiently waiting for that point by and some times I'd have to wait a long time (maybe because they couldn't see behind them). So, it might be a fun car for a short while, but if it's a straight track car, there are other options that will be quicker around the track. I'd think a Cayman with some modifications would make a very fun and formidable track car. As for the 997S I have coming, it's a compromise car that's closer to "track" than I feel my M3 was. I should be able to explore more with the Porsche and not have to worry so much about brakes. And the 98% off-track time spent in the car will be pure pleasure.

 

lotus is a momentum car, it's harder to drive well than e36m3 or e46m3. but driven equally well, unless the track has long straights, lotus is faster or equally as fast. on CA tracks i frequent a lot of bimmerheads moved to elise/exige. the fast guys are faster in lotus than they were in m3's. the slower guys are faster in m3's.

stock to stock, cayman is not as fast as lotus for sure. i have done back to back tests many times.

 

Mooty,
You took the words right out of my mouth.
Where the Lotus shines is in the corners and under breaking. They don't have the HP to make up for errors.

Kevin

 

b/c of that, you drive it more at the edge thus seem more exciting in some respect. and it's quite a bit cheaper than 997s or gt3's. i never drove my gt3 more than 8/10, fearing a big OTE and of course, i am sure i'll run out of talent at 9/10 going GT3 speeds. in the lotus or my present cay s, they are low in hp (relatively speaking) so i have to push them, and constantly correcting the car as i am closer to the edge, in that sense, i enjoy driving them more than GT3's.

certainly if i had enough talent or enough money to write off a new GT3, the story would be very different.

 

Wathever Mooty says I agree with.

I Have a 997S and Elise and track them both. the Elise is bone stock and the 997S has GT3 cup front control arms to increase neg camber and make the tires last more than a day at the track.

With both cars on R comps the 997S is monstruosly faster than the Elise at most tracks (2:11 vs 2:16 at Watkins Glen for example), but I enjoy the Elise the most as it makes me work the hardest to get the best out of it.

The Elise is the MOST RELIABLE AT THE TRACK car I have ever had. Lightness and simpleness is the key, as the car just doesn't break a sweat in 30min sessions going at it at 100%. Any other street car, you feel the punishment you are giving to the machine and its parts and have the need to cool down at some point. Consumables are therefore very low. Pads and tires will easily last a 15 day track season.

An Exige S will obviously be faster and is very tempting for me as I know I might be able to improve my 997S laptimes in it, but the force induction thing makes me wonder about it beng as reliable as the N/A car.

The 997S is by far the better street daily driver car, and I agree with Brendan about the needs of a GT car. I got mine with all the convenience bells and whistles including full leather, NAV, etc.

RonCT, the Elise / Exige N/A are definetively faster around the track than a stock E46 M3 (I know b/c I had one). It takes quite a bit of aftermarket stuff to make the Bimmers faster. I'm as fast in the Elise or just 0.5s slower in most tracks than my friend's in modified E46 M3s and S54 MCoupe (full coilovers, swaybars, exhaust, race seats, wider wheels etc.) and they are pretty good drivers.

 

I suppose maybe one factor here was I had 7 years in the E46 platform, 4 of those in the M3. I really knew my car. Bone stock except for brake lines, fluid, rotors, pads, AFE / Shark / Borla, and R-comps. When guys with Lotuses (or is it Loti) would come onto the track, my guess is they just didn't have as much seat time as I did because people would expect the momentum car to advance on me, yet I was advancing on them (A-Solo groups, so clearly not novice drivers). Perhaps the lesson here is it's not so much the car or the driver, but the car and driver combined. Take me out of the M3 and put me into a Lotus for a few years and I'm sure I'd find the "magic". Same with the 997S, Cayman, etc. My M3 was my only track experience car, so I can't really compare - but others I know that have made a change into other cars have said the E46 M3 is relatively "easy" to drive fast because it is very balanced and predictable.

Oh, back to the original post - 997S vs. Lotus, I'd venture to guess different styles, but overall the 997S will get around almost any track in less time (?).