Chris Harris video: Lotus Exige S
You've read the story (hopefully) - now watch Chris Harris and the Lotus Exige S on video!
The car oversteered in a manner I hadn't ever experienced before. If I had managed to throw every last degree of opposite lock at the slide at the right moment, it might just have been catchable, but I didn't get anywhere close. I was in a Lotus Elise, my two-month-old Lotus Elise - and it was about to undergo some choice bodywork modifications courtesy of my fledgling's lack of skill, a large grass bank and a maroon Volvo 440.
What the Elise had, from the start, was suppleness and clear, unhindered responses. Up to about 8/10ths, it was a masterclass in why all other sports cars weighed too much and carried way too much spring rate. Beyond that point, the original Elise was lethal. As mentioned above, I experienced this first hand. Big roll angles meant big lift-off oversteer, and the old P-Zero was shambolic in the wet. Don't buy into all this stuff about the early Elise being a honey - beyond 8/10ths it could be more spiteful than a 1977 911 Turbo.
Why so? Partly because the pure Lotus chassis thinking made it that way, but also because the team of test drivers, the Kershaws, Beckers, McQueens, were so handy that they could sort a wayward Elise at 100mph in the wet - the trouble being few other people could.
The big change came with the series two Elise and its totally revised chassis and Bridgestone tyres. It was a much, much easier car to drive at the limit, and it set the tone for all subsequent improvements. Thereon in, the car became faster, meaner and aided by more complicated electronic systems, but it was still a saddled with too little power to be able to drive you out of a slidey-problem, and it lacked rear chassis stiffness, causing it to sap confidence when you turned into higher-speed turns. You turned the wheel and there was always this initial, disconcerting movement from the back of the car.
With the Exige S, that movement is gone. The car gives you way more confidence than the Sport 260, its systems are bewildering in their capabilities and the car now has proper propulsion. Switch the systems off, which you can do, and it'll hold slides. Silly, but fun.
This car doesn't drive like a continuation exercise. For me, it nails any Evora or outgoing Elise because it feels quite different to any other Elise-based product I've driven.
Exige S1 was already a bit too "sterile" for me...
And the S2... Hmm.. never could live with the initial understeer.
Edited to add: seen the video, and it just doesn't sound right... a Lotus "helping you to steer"... Hmm... I'll pass thanks.
Compared to a Honda'd Elise, on Advan Neovas... Yep, the handling was too neutral for my liking. Definitely more planted, yes, but I prefer a car that you have to "work" in to get it round a corner. The Exige didn't do that for me..
I may be a bit too much of a purist when it comes down to fun driving, I don't like electronic nannies at all, hence my comments about the steering help on the S.
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.
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