Exige review in Sports Car International
The March 2006 issue of Sports Car International (a GREAT magazine, if you haven’t already checked it out) has a review of the new Lotus Exige. I learned one thing new by reading it, Exige is French for ‘demanding’! How appropriate. You can read the whole article here or read the rest of this post to see it copied there (though you’ll have to follow the link above to see the pictures at SCI’s website).
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Sweet Violence
For those who don’t find the Elise hardcore enough, Lotus now offers the Exige—a road car that barely masks the track-day beast within.
by Greg N. Brown
Photography courtesy Lotus
The automobile is a controlled act of violence, but most cars mask the havoc with craftily formed chunks of metal alloys and complex polymers, compliant coils of steel, layers of insulation and thick plates of glass. If those methods fail, there’s always a 12-speaker stereo to hide the ferocity of exploding gasses and vaporizing rubber.
Then there is Lotus. “We wanted the car to tell the truth,” explained Nick Adams, leader of the mad dogs and Englishmen who crafted the new Lotus Exige. And the truth, in Lotus speak, means an almost complete disdain for masking the sweet violence created by a high-performance sports car.
Even the name, which is French and means “demanding,” represents an essential truth of the Exige. If you plan on using it for anything other than blasting along favorite winding roads or racing on the weekends, buy something more sensible, like a Carrera GT or McLaren SLR, cream puffs compared to the Exige. If your grocery list is longer than a six-pack and the latest SCI, rent a stretch limo for runs to the store. Far more practical.
Because the Exige is less than four feet tall and has broad side members, just climbing in and out presents challenges to both spine and dignity. It assaults the ears, too, with resounding blats from the mid-mounted 1.8-liter four, which at certain rpm makes your head feel like it’s being used as a motor mount. No matter. Noise-cancelling earphones can be employed for long trips without shame. The inner ear is also captive to the Exige’s insistence on telling it like it is. Even at moderate speeds, the low center of gravity and phenomenal grip amplify the forces of gravity, and the rapidly shifting tides of motion leave the human body’s balancing fluids in a merry fizz.
However, the only truth that really matters, to Lotus and to us, is that the two-seat, rear-drive Exige is one of the most exhilarating cars ever to be unleashed onto public roads and racetracks alike. Not since the Ferrari F40 have I driven a street car that felt so eager to be let loose on a closed circuit and was so comfortable meeting the challenge. Even better, the Exige is available for far less than the cool million the F40 traded hands for back in the day. At just $50,990, the Exige will make many of us reconsider how to spend that second mortgage.
Based on the same 150-pound extruded and bonded aluminum chassis under the wildly successful Lotus Elise, the Exige wears different bodywork for good reasons. Not only does it look like a race car that somehow got a DMV exemption, it boasts greatly increased downforce, which is key to a stable high-speed track car. Just compare the numbers: The Elise creates 8.6 pounds of downforce in front and 4.4 at the rear. The Exige generates 42.3 pounds at the front and 48.2 at the rear.
The additional stability and grip were clearly revealed during a hugely entertaining afternoon of lapping the Exige and Elise at Virginia International Raceway. Back-to-back laps of an Elise, an Elise with the optional Sport Pack gear that comes standard on the Exige and a new Exige with the hardcore Track Pack options transported me from delight to joy to ecstasy as I moved through distinctively better stages of pureblooded sports-car performance.
The new Elise ($42,990) will be detailed another time, but many of the improvements and upgrades made to the ’06 model also have been incorporated into the Exige. These include a pedal cluster revised for easier heel-and-toe shifting and reduced brake effort (by a significant 30 percent), an electronic throttle for better response, rear LED taillights, daytime running lights, an updated instrument panel for better clarity with a tell-tale indicator for the optional traction-control system and redesigned padding and stitching for the sports seats.
The two cars share chassis and powertrain, but outside, only the doors are identical. The Exige is put together on a separate production line and the body panels are hand-laid. Because of the limited numbers—only 300 are coming to the U.S. in this first run—it made better sense to use the human touch. Unique to the Exige are a front splitter, removable hardtop roof (which contributes basically nothing to the car’s structural rigidity), smoothened rear bodywork, a rear wing canted at 11.5 degrees (said by Lotus to provide an ideal balance of downforce and drag), a flat-panel underbody and a rear diffuser. The splitter, wing, diffuser, side scoops, front wheel arch brake vents and wheels all are in black, accentuating the time the Exige’s panels spent being honed in the wind tunnel and providing aesthetic contrast to the choice of 20 exterior colors.
Standard Exige running gear is front 195/50R16s on 6.5 x 16 forged alloys and rear 225/45R17s on 7.5 x 17 forged alloys. The tires are Yokohama Advan A048s, specially developed with Lotus for the car. The suspension calibrations for the Bilstein monotube shocks and Eibach coaxial coil springs are about 10 percent stiffer than in the Elise. Twin oil coolers are also fitted to handle track-day temperatures.
A Touring Package ($1,350) adds black leather seats and door panels, full carpeting, additional sound insulation and an upgraded stereo. The Track Pack ($2,495) offers 3-way adjustable Bilstein shocks with threaded spring perches, an adjustable front anti-roll bar and a rear track link. For hardcore autocrossers, there’s an optional limited-slip differential; traction control, which limits wheelspin over 5 mph by cutting out individual cylinders to reduce power, is also available (combined, the LSD and traction control cost $1,790). To add lightness, the air-conditioning can be deleted; it costs $250 but saves 22 pounds.
The driver’s view back through the inside mirror is spectacular, the mesh engine covers and wing gorgeous reminders of the car’s high-tech bloodlines. Even with all that architecture in view, the rear sight lines are fairly good if the side mirrors are constantly consulted. In fact, for such a small thing, the Exige’s ergonomics are quite good, and the seating, shift lever, steering wheel and pedals fit around most drivers like a bespoke suit. Because it’s meant to be used on the track, there’s plenty of room for a helmeted noggin; only the very tall might find the cockpit too low for comfort. My six-foot frame certainly had no problem feeling entirely at home as I lurched the Exige around the track.
VIR is a beautiful complex of racing facilities just across the Virginia line from North Carolina, and it includes the longest road course in North America (4.2 miles) among four possible configurations. Lotus had reserved the 2.25-mile North Course—a frolic of 17 turns and lots of elevation change—for a session of unlimited lapping that ranks as one of the most enjoyable experiences of my driving life.
The Exige outfitted with the Track Pack took to the winding road course like a terrier on a rat, grabbing hold and letting go only when commanded to do so. Because the Exige weighs just 2,015 pounds, its Toyota-sourced, Lotus-modified 190-horsepower engine felt entirely up to the task. Lotus says it’s able to generate a 0-60 mph time of 4.9 seconds and a top speed of 147 mph; no argument there, but it felt much stronger than its 138 lb-ft of torque would indicate. Max torque doesn’t hit until 6,800 rpm and peak horsepower until 7,800, but credit close cooperation between the free-revving engine and close-ratio 6-speed manual gearbox for making the pulling power so accessible. The redline is at 8,000 rpm, and a light flashes on the dash when it has been reached, but short 1.5-second periods at 8,500 are allowed for the overzealous.
Did I want more power? Of course. And the chassis is way understressed, capable of handling a whole bunch more motor. Lotus offers a supercharged Exige for Europe, increasing output to 243 horsepower and torque to 174 lb-ft, thus lowering its 0-60 sprints to under four seconds. Sadly, the chances of it appearing here are nil, at least in this generation of Exige. The aftermarket is ready and willing, though, to fill the gap.
Power figures and test numbers aside, the Exige brews up a heady storm of g forces and sonic resonances that encapsulate the occupants like a form of energy, and the world outside seems to operate in a different time zone. If this prose is slightly purple, it reflects the rosy glow coming from my helmet’s faceplate as I whooped and hollered my way around the track. I was, of course, getting considerably less than the EPA’s 24/29 mpg estimated fuel economy as I worked up to higher speeds.
Not only was driving VIR great fun, but even after several hours of track time, neither the car nor the driver got tired of doing it, over and over again. A good track safety rule is to quit before you’ve had enough, but only darkness made me exit the cockpit of the Exige. Most production cars (and journalists) can tolerate only so much of the torture imposed by a racetrack, but the Exiges on hand, and this writer, never once complained despite the demanding circuit and varied levels of abuse. I only wanted more.
Especially impressive was the braking system. The fronts are vented, cross-drilled 11.5-inch rotors gripped by twin-piston Lotus/AP Racing calipers. The rears are Brembo single-piston sliding calipers (to accommodate the emergency brake), with 11.5-inch discs. At the very first part of the session the brakes felt a bit oversensitive, but it didn’t take long before they displayed that “right now!” strength needed on the track. Not once did I feel them fade, and brakes are generally the first component of a street car to fall victim to the higher forces generated on the track. They are power-assisted and aided by ABS, but both have been calibrated to performance standards and are non-intrusive components of the Exige’s fun quotient.
The same can be said of the steering. Its lack of assist is evident only at a slow pace through the tightest of turns, and at high speeds it requires only the lightest of inputs to redirect the nose—or the tail, if that’s how you want to steer. The quick-ratio rack (2.8 turns, lock to lock) is a joy to twist, but my laps behind the wheel were tame excursions through the park compared to rides with Lotus chief development driver and speed maniac Matt Becker. He treated VIR more like a giant skidpad, visiting opposite lock more often than any other steering angle, drifting through the corners with abandoned glee. His skills are particularly astonishing, because Becker has never competed in a race car (he gets his thrills off hours on water skis), though he has had the advantage of logging thousands of hours on numerous racetracks trying to get the Exige just right.
Which I think it is. Lotus has pulled off the perfect blend of race-level technology and street-car comfort. I checked out a standard Exige on the narrow public roads that undulate through the hills of southern Virginia. The street suspension was surprisingly supple over the well-used tarmac, and I could almost see driving it back to California. Almost. The tiny luggage space or eardrum-beating levels of ambient noise wouldn’t be the biggest problem. More troublesome would be the legions of motorists who would get in my way.
Just as a greyhound is unsuited for apartment living, the Exige is a waste of speed and athleticism unless it’s used as Adams and Becker and the rest of the performance-besotted crew of designers and engineers at Lotus intended: at the limit, rubber squealing, steering going from lock to lock, rev needle tickling the redline.