RE: Chris Harris video: Lotus Exige S
Discussion
I love, love love that car. The Exige S looks like a great bit of kit.
Well done Lotus.
Sadly, however, I cannot buy one.
Many moons ago when the Elise platform was conceived, someone somewhere deemed that only little people should be allowed to buy one.
If you are over 6ft tall or possessed of long legs ( I have) then it is more cramped than being squeezed into a tin of biscuits.
If Lotus had engineered just a couple more inches of length and width to this platform, it could serve them much better in terms of flexibility for other uses.
The car is just too damn small.
Well done Lotus.
Sadly, however, I cannot buy one.
Many moons ago when the Elise platform was conceived, someone somewhere deemed that only little people should be allowed to buy one.
If you are over 6ft tall or possessed of long legs ( I have) then it is more cramped than being squeezed into a tin of biscuits.
If Lotus had engineered just a couple more inches of length and width to this platform, it could serve them much better in terms of flexibility for other uses.
The car is just too damn small.
Come on guys, from the respected view of Mr Harris this is clearly something special. It's far to easy for internet jockeys to dismiss the car without any of us driving it.
The price is certainly high (at £40-45k it would have had a bigger audience), but we need to get behind and celebrate a British engineered true sports car and make sure it gets the praise it appears to deserve.
If we as British can't get our heads around this approach we're adding another nail to the coffin that contains what precious little is left of our car manufacturing industry.
Personally I love it, well done Lotus!
The price is certainly high (at £40-45k it would have had a bigger audience), but we need to get behind and celebrate a British engineered true sports car and make sure it gets the praise it appears to deserve.
If we as British can't get our heads around this approach we're adding another nail to the coffin that contains what precious little is left of our car manufacturing industry.
Personally I love it, well done Lotus!
I really cannot believe the negative rubbish that people are posting about this car.
Lambo have just revealed the Urus to try and shore up it balance sheet and all the haters come out saying they should stick to sports cars. Louts does exactly that and they are hated because the it’s more than they can afford the bumpers are to big, the wheels are a bit chavy or its not as cheep as a second hand portable toilet!..
If this new Lotus isn't your thing then you are obviously on the wrong web site.
We visit this site because we love cars/ bike, (the more extreme the better).
This car is exactly what the world needs right now; a bit of excess that shows what this country is capable of producing while maintaining the original Lotus/ Chapman ethos.
Well done Lotus for giving people what they want
(shame the people are all ignorant pessimists!..
)
Lambo have just revealed the Urus to try and shore up it balance sheet and all the haters come out saying they should stick to sports cars. Louts does exactly that and they are hated because the it’s more than they can afford the bumpers are to big, the wheels are a bit chavy or its not as cheep as a second hand portable toilet!..
If this new Lotus isn't your thing then you are obviously on the wrong web site.
We visit this site because we love cars/ bike, (the more extreme the better).
This car is exactly what the world needs right now; a bit of excess that shows what this country is capable of producing while maintaining the original Lotus/ Chapman ethos.
Well done Lotus for giving people what they want
(shame the people are all ignorant pessimists!..)I have to say £53k looks bang on the money to me, bearing in mind the places you can take a (slower, imo uglier) Cayman with the options list. It would have been great to see a car with premium pack leather interior in the vid, but the geneva pics look good enough to me. If only I could fit in the thing...
Cracking stuff Lotus (and Chris Harris).
Seems to me Lotus are on the way to becoming a serious contender and distancing themselves and their product from the ultra-low volume, track-orientated stuff.
Here is a car which you could genuinely drive to the track, race and drive home again and I would contend IS suitable as a second car, suitable for an everyday commute, at least for the committed petrolhead: Small, light, quick and with a decent set-up for road driving. What's not to like? It's even reasonably economical!
On the subject of weight, I think it's a pretty good effort bearing in mind all the safety equipment necessary on modern production cars and with 350bhp, performance is more than "adequate" IMO.
Finally, about time the old and hackneyed Lotus acronym (you know, the Lots of Trouble...one) was laid to rest. How about "Lanes or Track, Unusually Stimulating"?
Seems to me Lotus are on the way to becoming a serious contender and distancing themselves and their product from the ultra-low volume, track-orientated stuff.
Here is a car which you could genuinely drive to the track, race and drive home again and I would contend IS suitable as a second car, suitable for an everyday commute, at least for the committed petrolhead: Small, light, quick and with a decent set-up for road driving. What's not to like? It's even reasonably economical!
On the subject of weight, I think it's a pretty good effort bearing in mind all the safety equipment necessary on modern production cars and with 350bhp, performance is more than "adequate" IMO.
Finally, about time the old and hackneyed Lotus acronym (you know, the Lots of Trouble...one) was laid to rest. How about "Lanes or Track, Unusually Stimulating"?
Lotus propose building supercars at £100k + and people dislike it
Lotus employ rapper and dubious styling company and people dislike it
Lotus appear to have financial issues and people wish they could be saved to continue making sports cars
Lotus make sports car that competes with the best and people dislike it
How about a Lotus SUV instead?
Lotus employ rapper and dubious styling company and people dislike it
Lotus appear to have financial issues and people wish they could be saved to continue making sports cars
Lotus make sports car that competes with the best and people dislike it
How about a Lotus SUV instead?
justin220 said:
Max_Torque said:
Personally, for £53k, i'd have a nice £10k commuter (something diesel, something comfy) and a Caterham. And this is Lotuses problem, their are lots of otherways for people to spend their money these days. Lets face it, PH is the kind of site that the Exige V6 is aimed at, but how many people on here 1)want one (lots) and cruically 2) actually have a real £53k to spend(very few) ?? (i'm going to guess at less than 10-20 in the uk)
AFAIK, Lotus have around 350+ orders for them already. Also, according to the Autocar test (which awarded it 4.5 stars, the same as a Porsche 911 and BMW 3-series, which shows how highly they rate it), its great advantage is that it offers the kind of performance and handling on offer from cars nearly twice the price, but unlike almost all of its competitors in terms of performance-per-pound, it's not some lunatic stripped-out track-day alternative to a motorbike thing with no doors, which means it not a 'niche' car as such, rather it has feet in two niches - the track-day market and the junior supercar market.
They also point out the importance of its considerably lower running costs compared to its rivals. The engine's from a Lexus (or, to put it another way, one of the most consistently high achievers on the JD Power survey - compare that to a HG-eating K-series or a belt-throwing twin-cam of old), it does 28mpg and has Co2 emissions of 236 g/km.
There are many people out there who may be considering things like second-hand Ferraris and Aston Martins for £50k, who are well-off but still cost-conscious especially given the state of the economy who will love the idea of something just as fast in the real world, but brand-new and warrantied and coming with running costs that are actually slightly better than a Nissan 370Z - and a whole lot better than the lumbering SUVs people are insisting on buying these days.
It's a performance car for our times. According to Matt Becker it's for people who want a 911 GT3 but can't afford one.
Edited by Twincam16 on Thursday 26th April 10:45
Frimley111R said:
How, as a car journo, can you totally fail to understand what the company is doing and why it is doing it? It’s far from b
ks and what has been achieved in recent times is massively more than has ever been achieved in the last 20 years. Please tell me you don’t think that Lotus should be making lightweight little sports cars and selling them for £25k!
Lotus never stopped making stunningly good little cars but they don’t make enough/any money. They either remain small/niche and sell tiny numbers of cars or they MTFU, get some investment, bring in some top guys from the industry and show that they can compete with the world’s best given the chance. As a committed Lotus fan I am seriously glad they took the second option!
Actually, as a car journo, automotive engineer and project manager, I can see exactly what they're doing. Yes yes, lets make more expensive cars, that'll get us out of the poo. ks and what has been achieved in recent times is massively more than has ever been achieved in the last 20 years. Please tell me you don’t think that Lotus should be making lightweight little sports cars and selling them for £25k! Lotus never stopped making stunningly good little cars but they don’t make enough/any money. They either remain small/niche and sell tiny numbers of cars or they MTFU, get some investment, bring in some top guys from the industry and show that they can compete with the world’s best given the chance. As a committed Lotus fan I am seriously glad they took the second option!
Well no, i don't agree. Yes they desperately need the Esprit, but they also need to keep making cars like the Elise (by that i mean a light one, not the arse they came up with in the 5-car plan) and this Exige S. Proper sportscars that are nimble and handle like a dream and don't cost the earth.
£50k is the new £30k really, given that a Focus costs nearly £20k for a rubbish one nowadays.
If Lotus wanted to get themselves out of the red, they need to do what Porsche did sadly. Build a Cayenne. I absolutely hate the idea but they need to make an SUV that is lighter than the rest and more efficient, yet handles well and performs. Base it on known architecture, keep the costs down and sell it at a premium. That's what Porsche did and it worked wonders for them.
Maybe the same could be done for Lotus.
Beefmeister said:
Actually, as a car journo, automotive engineer and project manager, I can see exactly what they're doing. Yes yes, lets make more expensive cars, that'll get us out of the poo.
Well no, i don't agree. Yes they desperately need the Esprit, but they also need to keep making cars like the Elise (by that i mean a light one, not the arse they came up with in the 5-car plan) and this Exige S. Proper sportscars that are nimble and handle like a dream and don't cost the earth.
£50k is the new £30k really, given that a Focus costs nearly £20k for a rubbish one nowadays.
If Lotus wanted to get themselves out of the red, they need to do what Porsche did sadly. Build a Cayenne. I absolutely hate the idea but they need to make an SUV that is lighter than the rest and more efficient, yet handles well and performs. Base it on known architecture, keep the costs down and sell it at a premium. That's what Porsche did and it worked wonders for them.
Maybe the same could be done for Lotus.
Not sure they could. For starters, it was Porsche's connection to VW that allowed them to do that, I'm not sure Lotus would have access to the requisite platform - Proton's is bound to be too crude.Well no, i don't agree. Yes they desperately need the Esprit, but they also need to keep making cars like the Elise (by that i mean a light one, not the arse they came up with in the 5-car plan) and this Exige S. Proper sportscars that are nimble and handle like a dream and don't cost the earth.
£50k is the new £30k really, given that a Focus costs nearly £20k for a rubbish one nowadays.
If Lotus wanted to get themselves out of the red, they need to do what Porsche did sadly. Build a Cayenne. I absolutely hate the idea but they need to make an SUV that is lighter than the rest and more efficient, yet handles well and performs. Base it on known architecture, keep the costs down and sell it at a premium. That's what Porsche did and it worked wonders for them.
Maybe the same could be done for Lotus.
Also, it's already in the pipeline - the Lotus APX concept:
If the Proton-Youngman tie-up comes to fruition it'll have a Lotus badge slapped on it in China anyway.
Also, how would Lotus go about doing an SUV? It'd have to be considerably lighter than the competition and capable of properly going off-road in the manner of a lightweight military Land-Rover crossed with a Paris-Dakar rally car. If it's just a lumbering platform-engineered mess, the emergent market will completely get the wrong end of the stick as to what Lotus is all about and engineering traffic will suffer.
Garlick said:
Lotus propose building supercars at £100k + and people dislike it
Lotus employ rapper and dubious styling company and people dislike it
Lotus appear to have financial issues and people wish they could be saved to continue making sports cars
Lotus make sports car that competes with the best and people dislike it
People are, on the whole, dicks.Lotus employ rapper and dubious styling company and people dislike it
Lotus appear to have financial issues and people wish they could be saved to continue making sports cars
Lotus make sports car that competes with the best and people dislike it
It does make me wonder how a company who can and do produce such excellence in engineering, manage to fail so miserably at being a business.
toppstuff said:
I love, love love that car. The Exige S looks like a great bit of kit.
Well done Lotus.
Sadly, however, I cannot buy one.
Many moons ago when the Elise platform was conceived, someone somewhere deemed that only little people should be allowed to buy one.
If you are over 6ft tall or possessed of long legs ( I have) then it is more cramped than being squeezed into a tin of biscuits.
If Lotus had engineered just a couple more inches of length and width to this platform, it could serve them much better in terms of flexibility for other uses.
The car is just too damn small.
Smallness is a virtue in a sports car - but if you want a larger car, there's always the Evora.Well done Lotus.
Sadly, however, I cannot buy one.
Many moons ago when the Elise platform was conceived, someone somewhere deemed that only little people should be allowed to buy one.
If you are over 6ft tall or possessed of long legs ( I have) then it is more cramped than being squeezed into a tin of biscuits.
If Lotus had engineered just a couple more inches of length and width to this platform, it could serve them much better in terms of flexibility for other uses.
The car is just too damn small.
otolith said:
toppstuff said:
I love, love love that car. The Exige S looks like a great bit of kit.
Well done Lotus.
Sadly, however, I cannot buy one.
Many moons ago when the Elise platform was conceived, someone somewhere deemed that only little people should be allowed to buy one.
If you are over 6ft tall or possessed of long legs ( I have) then it is more cramped than being squeezed into a tin of biscuits.
If Lotus had engineered just a couple more inches of length and width to this platform, it could serve them much better in terms of flexibility for other uses.
The car is just too damn small.
Smallness is a virtue in a sports car - but if you want a larger car, there's always the Evora.Well done Lotus.
Sadly, however, I cannot buy one.
Many moons ago when the Elise platform was conceived, someone somewhere deemed that only little people should be allowed to buy one.
If you are over 6ft tall or possessed of long legs ( I have) then it is more cramped than being squeezed into a tin of biscuits.
If Lotus had engineered just a couple more inches of length and width to this platform, it could serve them much better in terms of flexibility for other uses.
The car is just too damn small.
DanDC5 said:
For those moaning about the price and can afford it, buy an N/A Exige V6. Problem solved.
+1 I don't get it, why are people acting like this is the only model Lotus do?! It is clearly for the people who DO have 53k in their pocket if they don't then there are always cheaper Lotus alternatives.
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff