mooty

gt4: i buy
lotus: golfnut, i will stop by sunday morning and take it out for the morning bacon waffle drive.

golfnutintib

it'll be waiting 4 u





wait, was that a promise or a threat????

khooni

yes yes. great track car. personally elise cup for technical tracks.... no top end
but purer steering
v6 exige cup for longer tracks .. heavier and less pleasing steering and chassis balance.

but on a regular road, as long as it's an hours drive and you never intend to take it for long distance (with a companion).. ok.

GT4 is a much much much better road car.


Consumables and mod cost..... no comparison. Porsche sucks


on saying that.. better get an e46 m3.... mod cheap, great FR chassis, magnificent engine, even smg gearbox is ok.

paradocs98

Thanks for posting. I drove an Exige at Lime Rock during a Skip Barber school years ago and loved it. It made the E92 M3, Cayman and 997 Carrera we were also driving feel like boats. So raw, so connected. I can only imagine how even better the modified example you drove was.

A couple of amusing memories of the experience. It was my first time ever driving on a track, and certainly my first time in a car with a big rear wing. I would see the wing in my side view mirror in my peripheral vision and think, "who is right behind me?" And when we were on the tight infield autocross circuit at Lime Rock, my big hands kept on bumping the horn button on the little steering wheel. I would come around the corner onto the front straight, in front of my fellow students standing and waiting for their turn, with my horn beeping. People thought, "is he waving to us--why is he honking?"

khooni

Realistically lotus has only one game and they know it. The target is the king of the track day marques with one focus audience.

The evora is a distraction imo and cannot take the fight to Porsche Audi bmw etc.
The will continue to evolve their light weight tub and stick with their ethos of producing superb chassis plus unparalleled steering for both fast road and track use.

In that game, they are still king of the hill. Caterham/ariel/zenos/bac/radical are too bare bones and too track focused. For road and mainly track, lotus is king

Porsche GT cars are King of mainly road and some track

konaforever

You had me until SMG gearbox ok.

khooni

For all its worth, it's still faster than me shifting and u get a nice big thump in the back when shifting. Slow but somehow engaging and defo not smooth.

4carl

the other benefit of tracking a lotus which i did for 8 yrs is how easy they are to setup. Double A arms F&R . Very simple to get any alignment you want . You don't have to replace parts like the GT4 to get a good track set up. Craig Stanton (pro) did a 130.51 lap @ big willow with my first lotus a 190 hp NA Elise with nitrons & slicks. They are a great track car not a great car.

Terry L

I had a new 2005 Elise which I daily drove and tracked regularly for 3 years until I replaced it with a 997 GT3. I did all of the regular track mods - CF seats, harness bar, Nitron shocks, toe links, sport wheels, Hoosiers, Accusump, I can't recall what else. I drove it for 8 hours to get to VIR in perfect comfort, tracked it for 3 days, drove home. No sweat. Mine was pretty reliable and hadn't been in the shop more than a few times in 33,000 miles when I sold it.
I guess that I sold it because I most run with PCA and it's not good on track with Porsches. You can go into the corner faster than the p-car in front of you but you can't pass and the car had no drive whatever coming out of the corner, so the guy you caught under braking now runs away down the straight, and the guy behind you with twice the grunt wants a pass. The car was great at Lotus only events but those are few and far between.
I also started to think about safety as speed picked up, and the Lotus didn't give me a lot of comfort. Eventually, I bought a pure track car with a cage. But I always enjoyed the Elise and wouldn't hesitate to recommend one. Just learn the right technique to get in and out.

Fstclyz

Sweet car. I'm about to build an Exocet with a turbo or blown motor. Should be just as fun and half the cost as an exige. Top speed is limited however due to drag and safety is certainly a factor.

kyrocks

The Lotus cars are go karts. Such fun!

s2ktaxi

I'd love to have a Honda K20 engine in an Exige that revs to 8400 rpm. Would take that over a GT4

4carl

there was one in our old private track day group. a rocket but lots of sorting out issues.

FORENN

Thanks for the review. Looks like an incredible car. I have been tempted many times to buy a Lotus but I don't have a dealership nearby and am not sure how service would work. I love much of the styling with Lotus, especially the new Evora 410 and Exige 380, and it is refreshing to see an auto company that focuses only on race and sports cars that are hand-built, have a proper 6MT transmission, and are loaded with lightweight components. I hope more of the models will make their way to the USA. The company seems to be on the right trajectory these days.

needmoregarage

An instructor colleague has a few "Loti" and is continually having mechanical problems. He is very frustrated. The dealer service is unable to fix it so he is waiting for international support (can't recall what exactly was wrong but having to do with engine malfunction)

At Mid OH this weekend he brought his RS America. It was his only trackable car that was running properly.