Lotus Exige Race 380: You’ve Seen It Before, Now Ogle It Once More

–

Americans will find the all-new Lotus Exige Race 380 available this spring, but like all the other track-ready Lotus hardtops we’ve told you about, it can’t be registered for use on public roads.

–

Lotus keeps upping the power (and price) on its limited series of Exige and Elise Cup cars, which by all accounts haven’t changed much in 17 years. But despite its age, the Toyota-sourced supercharge 3.5-liter V-6, and the inability to meet U.S. federal crash standards, Lotus can still cobble together delightful lightweight track toys. So, as you might guess, the Exige Race 380 is fun.

–

At $ 145,000 before options and shipping, it’s also the most affordable mid-engined factory race car with doors and a windshield, at least by Lotus’s reckoning. Allowing for all the qualifiers (factory race car, mid-engine, doors, windshield, etc.), the most comparable contender appears to be the Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport that sells for $ 165,000. With Lotus claiming a zero-to-60-mph time of 3.2 seconds, performance—if not build quality—should be similar to the German car’s. On a tight course with few straights, you’d need a hero and a mid-engine racer selling for more than double the price—a Ferrari 488GT3 or a Lamborghini Huracán Super Trofeo—to truly run and hide from this Lotus. Or, if you think windscreens and doors and such are just superfluous, you could look into an Ariel Atom. Well, you can actually look right through an Ariel Atom, but we digress.

–

–

Lotus lists a dry weight of 2196 pounds, which is about as meaningless and impossible a measurement as stepping on the bathroom scale without any blood. Figure the race-ready mass will be nearer, but slightly below, that of the 2492-pound Exige 360 Cup that premiered in 2015. That’s still more than 350 pounds lighter than what Porsche claims for the starting-line mass of a Cayman GT4 Clubsport. Even with a hot-blooded adult (all body fluids included) strapped into the carbon-fiber chair, that’s baby-on-the-lap light. Choosing the optional titanium exhaust sheds another 22 pounds, and it emits prettier tunes from the supercharged 375-hp Toyota V-6 and nicer blips when downshifting via the Xtrac sequential six-speed transmission. It’s race equipped with an integrated roll cage, an FIA-legal driver’s seat that can accommodate your HANS device, a six-point harness, polycarbonate side windows, a fire extinguisher, a battery isolator, and tow hooks on both ends. All those wings, gills, and scoops provide up to 528 pounds of downforce at 170 mph, Lotus asserts. Traction control, two-way Öhlins dampers, and the front and rear anti-roll bars are all adjustable.

–

–

When night falls and it’s time to stop—there are no headlights, only black covers—the AP Racing brakes and Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires will aid your entry into pit lane. At that point, your Lotus Cup series team can download the telemetry from the onboard GPS and data logger. Lotus claims the Race 380 can turn a lap of its Hethel, England, test track fully 1.5 seconds quicker than its predecessor, the Exige Cup R. Speed aside, we’d also like to take a moment to swoon at the single taillights (Lotus deleted the second set, presumably to save weight) and the single center-mounted exhaust pipe. In an era of enormous LED lights and quad exhaust outlets, the styling restraint here pleases our eye, even if it’s due less to intentional design than to sheer functionality.

–

–
• The Eleventy-Billionth Variation on a Theme: New Lotus Elise Cup 250

–

• Lotus Exige 360 Cup: Another Small-Batch Lotus

–

• The Lotus Elise S Cup R Is the Track Star You Can’t Take Home

–

–

While Europeans get a street-legal Exige (with headlights and everything!), the only new Lotus that Americans can slap a license plate on for road use today is the refreshed-for-2016 Evora 400. Perhaps a few will show up in the parking lot when the Lotus Exige Race 380 makes its on-track debut at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut in late May.

–
Car and Driver BlogCar and Driver Blog