Special-edition Exige celebrates GT3 win

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Yet more news of another Exige model.

Source: AutoCar

Lotus is celebrating its victory in the British GT3 Championship with this special-edition Exige.

Called the Lotus Exige S British GT Special Edition, it'll sprint from 0-60mph in less time than it takes you to read out its name.

Lotus's race team was awarded the championship with a race still to run. It has been campaigning in an Exige not that dissimilar to the road car.

The GT Special Edition costs £39,995 and comes with a natty quad-stripe paint scheme, numbered 'British GT' badges, Lotus Sport Cadena decals and forged alloy wheels. In the cosy cabin you get unique sports seats, door trims and Lotus Sport floor mats.

If those details, the 4.1sec 0-60mph time, 218bhp and 159lb ft aren't enough for you, for £4995 you can also add an optional GT Pack. Apart from making the car's name unbelievably long (Lotus Exige S British GT Special Edition GT Pack, anyone?), it boosts performance. Power goes up to 243bhp, torque to 174lb ft, and the 0-60mph time goes down to under four seconds. The brakes are also upgraded, with larger front discs and different pads.

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Price is a bit steep for an Exige, but then again you are buying into exclusivity...

Nice paint scheme, though. 👍
 
That's about € 59,798 with the current (exchange) rate. The additional GT pack = € 7,468. That's a lot of money. It is almost as much as a small, cheap, little family car.
159 lb ft is about 215 Nm which is pretty good consider the weight of this car.
With the GT pack 174 ft lb = 236 Nm.

The car looks good, nice seats. You can use race seatbelts with these seats! 👍

The only thing I still don't like about the Lotus Elise, Exige, special edition is that they "look" like little "baby" race cars.
 
I'll take a TVR Tuscan 2 instead.
 
Lovely car as always, is the T-Sport Toyota engine still used in this one? I've read somewhere Toyota engines were or are being used in the Elise(s)
 
The Toyota 2ZZGE is still being used in the Elise/Exige. Don't expect a replacement in this decade.

I've gotten over being annoyed that all Lotus can seem to come up with are "special" editions of their Elise and Exige. All they're doing is changing (not introducing new ones, but changing) the wheels, adding some stripes, which have been available on request anyways, added fancier interior trim, which also has always been publically available from Lotus, and calling them something special. We haven't seen anything really new since the Europa and Exige 240. It's almost as bad as Mazda's Miata, which had something absurd like 23 variants in its first generation.
 
Any word on these special editions coming to the US? All I can see for sale stateside are the base Elise & Exige, with a few non-engine options. It seems like the supercharger would be street-legal here, and would really help Lotus prove it's hardcore reputation.
 
Currently available in the USA are the following:

'05-'07 Elise - 190bhp Toyota 2ZZ, with available LSS (sport suspension) which gets you stiffer everything and new wheels/dimensions. '06 and '07 available in Canada.

'06 Exige - 190bhp Toyota 2ZZ, which is the Elise with LSS + aero upgrades and different seats.

'06 Exige Cup/Cup 240 - 219bhp/240bhp Toyota 2ZZ. Both are supercharged variants of the Exige, and have the benefit of track commodities like installed tow hooks, fuel cutouts, fuel cell, headlight delete etc. These cars are not street legal (although some people got tired of track-only 1000 mile break-in of the motor, so they stole their wives' Lexus's plates and did some breaking in on the street. No reported problems with the police).

'06 Sport Elise - 190bhp NA. Other random track commodities like the Exige Cup cars. Only a very limited run of these came in, something like 25 cars. I don't know too much about them, other than they're striped and are equiped with LSS.

'07 Exige S - 219bhp Supercharged Exige. Has new exhaust over old Exiges, and a smaller mirror to look into your intercooler (there is absolutely zero visibility out this mirror). These cars just arrived in US showrooms today, literally. Available in Canada, too!

Note that there are no NA '07 Exiges. All Exiges coming in from now on are either forgotten leftover 06 cars or 07 Exige S cars. Lotus has already saturated the niche hardcore enthusaist market with too many Elise and Exiges. The people who are right for an Exige S already own an Elise or Exige, and don't want to take the 4-5 thousand dollar blow to the wallet for an Exige S. This is why Lotus stopped producing Elises and Exiges a bit early in 06, and are only offering the Elise and S in 07. The latter will be offered in low quantities, somewhere near 2 or 3 hundred units total. Hopefully the market will stabilize and demand won't die in 4-6 months like I am expecting it to.

Hope this isn't too confusing.
 
Yes, the Lotus Cadena GT3 team. That is the highest known power output the Elise motor can take as tuned by Lotus, at a bit lower than 300bhp. When the GT3 series was first introduced, it wasn't looking so hot for Lotus in the initial timed laps, but they tossed in their lead chassis technician, who's absolutely amazing, and I guess things turned out good.
 
...Yet another cool car that won't be coming here, but I'm sure you could build something similar with some aftermarket parts.

I've always wondered if Lotus would ever think of bringing the Elise 1.8S here, but I doubt it more and more. A cheaper model would make it a nice alternative to models like the Solstice GXP and Sky Red Line, hell maybe even the 350Z. But if you're only saving a few thousand dollars and Lotus would actually have to put fourth more money for testing and such (given their current situation with Proton), it might not be a good idea after all...
 
There is no market for the low-power equivalent. The last thing the American market is asking for from Lotus right now is less power. You can already get used untracked '05 Elises for 32,000$ anyways.

As far as aftermarket goes - yes, there are several options. The current contenders are TriPoint with their supercharger, and ForcedFed's multiple turbo kits. Both companies have proven rock solid designs. I know that FF's kit fits the Elise and Exige, but I don't know where the TriPoint's intercooler is, and if it fits the Elise's smaller engine compartment. I also heard JacksonRacing, another known tuning firm, just entered the Supercharging market.

But then again, the drivetrain warranty is a big thing for many owners. If you want that power, none of these options will work.
 
exigeracer
Note that there are no NA '07 Exiges. All Exiges coming in from now on are either forgotten leftover 06 cars or 07 Exige S cars. Lotus has already saturated the niche hardcore enthusaist market with too many Elise and Exiges. The people who are right for an Exige S already own an Elise or Exige, and don't want to take the 4-5 thousand dollar blow to the wallet for an Exige S. This is why Lotus stopped producing Elises and Exiges a bit early in 06, and are only offering the Elise and S in 07. The latter will be offered in low quantities, somewhere near 2 or 3 hundred units total. Hopefully the market will stabilize and demand won't die in 4-6 months like I am expecting it to.

Hope this isn't too confusing.
Click to expand...


No, I got it all right. Odd to see that there's only Elise's with more power than last year available. I could have sworn that the base-level Elise S was coming over (obviously mistaken, though). The Elise chassis definitely can handle and surely deserves more power.

I guess that's all well and good, but where does that leave any possibility of the Europa? Will Lotus wait until there's a 240HP+ Europa? And then what of any Esprit design? If Lotus expects the Esprit to be placed above the Elise/Exige, surely 500HP would be needed to give equivalent performance (and at least previous Esprit levels of luxury).

This horsepower war is getting out of hand. I can't see all these car companies having much room to move for new cars. I wonder if we're heading for a 70's-style performance crash sooner rather than later.... But thinking on it more, that was really just a brief lull before the onslaught of new ideas in the 80's. I guess I just hate the lulls inbetween. ;)
 
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