When I was young, I imagined being inside my Hot Wheels cars when the relentless pull of gravity sent them hurtling faster than the eye could see down endless coils of snaking plastic track. As I choke back vomit and brace myself against the doorsill for another right-hander, my imagination is no longer necessary. Downhill in a Hot Wheels car feels like Road Atlanta does in Lotus' latest interpretation of Satan's personal sled - the Lotus Sport Exige.
It should go without saying that a 243bhp supercharged Exige without headlights, airbags or air conditioning accelerates very, very quickly. And you can probably picture that same car with track-tuned Ohlins suspension and Yokohama racing slicks being able to corner very, very well.
Which is good, because Road Atlanta's many blind corners require brass-balled commitment before the apex is visible or, for that matter, even before the track itself is visible. Turn 12 is a prime example, whose turn-in point and apex don't reveal themselves until you've crested a steep hill and find yourself mid-corner in fourth gear. If you decide to lift off the throttle or adjust your attitude on the steep downhill gradient, there's nothing but a towering concrete wall a mere 20 feet from the road to slow your possibly forward, but more likely sideways, progress.
The North American debut of Lotus Sport has offered me the rib-smashing, butt-clenching opportunity above, as well as the chance to spend time in the new Elise Sport (more on that later). You can think of Lotus Sport as the AMG of the company, except without the obsession for tubby sedans with big cubes and more gadgets on the dash than The Sharper Image has in the whole store. The Exige I've been driving is one of just 15 to be released in America and it's already been sold for $78,990, plus options and delivery.
The steering wheel is removable to aid ingress and egress around the comprehensive roll cage, and the car comes equipped with an FIA-approved on-board fire suppression system and electrical cutoff. A clutch plate-type limited-slip differential is also included, which can be adjusted by changing the number of plates according to track condition.
But the real kicker is the supercharger, which, though a Roots-type, is intercooled via the roof scoop and smashes 7.5psi of air into the 1.8-liter Toyota engine (which is actually sourced from Yamaha). The unit seems to be exactly what people have been asking for, but it doesn't look like we'll ever see a road-going variant here in the US. If you want to be irritated, here's why we won't: it seems the pulley on the blower interferes with the mount location for the charcoal canister, and the cost of cutting the red tape to simply relocate the canister is prohibitive.
If you can't afford to drop 80 grand on a car that will need a trailer to get to the nearest race track, Lotus Sport has also created the most extreme Elise made to date, the Lotus Sport Elise. Entirely different from an Elise with the 'sport' package, and considerably more hardcore than an Elise with the 'track' package, it's a car built for the race track. A roll hoop and a safety harness bar are squeezed into an interior that has been liberally slathered in yellow - a trait the car shares with no other Elise or Exige.
The exterior of the car is also bright yellow, with two silver stripes down the middle, a la vintage racer. Whether or not you like the racing stripes, the car unsurprisingly tracks like it's on the proverbial rails with Ohlins coilover suspension and a five-way adjustable front anti-roll bar. The dampers are both rebound and compression adjustable, with spring rates that are acceptable on the street but definitely geared for racing. The anti-roll bar is identical to the one offered in the more plebian Elise track package.
The downside may be that this super Elise costs 55 grand. That's a lot cheaper than the Lotus Sport Exige, but it's also $7060 more than an Elise with a track package and $4000 more than a standard Exige, which looks considerably more badass. On the other hand, you are buying into an exclusive club of just 50 members and you even get a numbered plaque to prove it.
The fact that Lotus has come out with an extreme Elise is hard to imagine - like drilling holes in a carbon fiber road bike to save weight. A stock, base-model Elise will devour a back road faster than 90 per cent of humans have the guts to try and offers as much luxury as a nicely-equipped dogsled. Still, it's a street car and moving so much as an inch further into the realm of 'race car' upsets this extremely delicate balance somewhat.
We didn't drive the Lotus Sport Elise on the road, though. We drove it where the car - and every other Elise/Exige - belongs, at the track. And just like its no-holds-barred brother, it went very, very fast.
By James Tate
Enjoyed this Post? Subscribe to our RSS Feed, or use your favorite social media to recommend us to friends and colleagues!