The 430 Cup is the most extreme Lotus Exige ever
Last month’s fastest/dearest Lotus ever was a limited-edition Evora, but – keep up! – things change fast at Hethel and now there’s a new champion. This month it’s an Exige that gets the badge of honour. It’s an “unlimited edition” model and, says Lotus, “not for the faint of heart”.
Just shy of £100,000 before options gets you the new Exige Cup 430 with more power, less weight and more downforce than the Elise-based sports coupe has ever had before.
With the best new 430bhp version of the 3.5-litre supercharged V6 from the flagship Evora under the rear deck, the new Cup car pinches Lotus 0-62mph honours with a sparkling time of 3.3 seconds. The body comes with lots of aero so its v-max of 180mph can’t match the 196mph of the spoiler-less Evora 430. But then with 220kg of downforce, the Cup 430 is far more circuit than autobahn; Lotus says it is the quickest road car ever around the Hethel test track, faster even than the 3-Eleven in road trim.
The supercar-slaying new arrival is the epitome of Lotus’s interminable tweaking to eke out every last drop of performance. Apart from 15 per cent more power than the Exige Cup 380 it succeeds, the 430 is 12kg lighter, now a trim 1,059kg dry weight. That makes for an impressive power-weight ratio of just over 400bhp per tonne.
You can see why Lotus calls it “the most extreme Exige ever conceived” and, for Lotus boss Jean-Marc Gales, “the car we have always wanted to build.”
Add a six-speed manual box with improved linkage, bigger brakes, adjustable dampers and roll bars, and a clean new look with lots of carbon elements – front splitter, front access panel, roof, diffuser surround, side pods, tailgate and rear wing are all lightweight composite – and there’s not much not to like here. The car comes with a steel rollover bar but an FIA compliant roll cage is an option, along with other necessities for serious track use.
As Jean-Marc Gales says: “It’s no exaggeration when we say that nothing can keep up with this Exige on the road or track. It will go down as a ground-breaking car in the history of Lotus.”
The Exige is not the latest kid on the block but, brilliant to start with and precision-fettled by experts, as a driving machine it just seems to get younger.