Apparently not, apparently it's an exige roadster...

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/motorsh..._revealed.html

WTF!

 

its the porsche coxster spider all over again.

 

Lotus are going down the pan fast. That's what happens why you put a guy from Ferrari in charge of a company that isn't Ferrari.

 

you can take the roof panel off an exige

that thing looks fugging awful though

 

1100kg Exige... oh dear.

my S2 elise was 700kg. that's about a 60% increase in flab... time for an Exige atkins diet I think...

what a shame, Lotus used to stand out and offer something different from the rest, there was no alternative to the Elise really in terms of purity and driver involvement that *could* be used daily. Just looks like another 'power is everything' approach to selling cars, which in my opinion is all wrong.

Let's hope they at least preserve the sub 150bhp, sub 800kg Elise model in their seemingly strange desire to be the best sports car maker in the world... aspiring to be the best is one thing, forgetting what made you successful in the first place is stupidity.

I would buy the Porsche alternative to this all day long, no doubt similarly priced and probably better built / spec'd.

Porsche didn't make an Elise / Exige rival... no-one did, it filled a gap in the market that proved to be a big gap...

 

Oh dear Lotus, used to be up there in my favourite car brands but slowly slipping...

 

Never mind that - have you seen the state of that interior? Looks like I made it.

1100 Kgs isn't actually that bad - by modern standards. The BLzebub K was a super-lightweight engine and the Camry V6 is just another yank engine. Beef it up to cope et voila.

Sadly, I think Lotus is probably stuck in an invidious paradigm; too many people want received-wisdom vages for their hard-earned & not apparently-fragile track toys. Last tome Lotus went upmarket, it wasn't terribly successful & I doubt it will again. The vag Boxster/911 represent cheesily-good ownership propositions for low rates, whilst Lotus' reputation gets in the way and will continue to do so. Vag's Stuttgart division is enormously profitable; Proton's clay soil division is enormously lossable & that's why it's for sale yet again.

If you want to avoid looking like cheesy instant coffee advert, Lotus do still make lightweight verions of the Exige/Elise/R340 for track day nutters. For now.

 

Picture 5 looks good to me, a V6 Elise even. Show cars are often gash.

Russ (Still a Lotus owner )

 

Forgive my ignorance but isn't an exige with the roof chopped off not just an elise?

 

The inside looks as if it's made of plasticine