Friday 20th March 2015

Lotus announces Exige S Club Racer

The Elise Club Racer has gone but looks what's arrived instead!

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It won't take a genius to realise Lotus's intention with the Exige S Club Racer. There are quite a few people currently very disappointed that they won't be able to buy a Porsche Cayman GT4. Quite a few people who have allocated c.£60K for a mid-engined, six-cylinder manual track car. Oh, to have another option...

15kg saved over standard Exige

PH pitched the Exige Cup as a GT4 alternative, Lotus actually receiving a lot of interest off the back of that story. But even as track focused cars go, there remains quite a big leap from the Cayman to the race-ready Exige. So now there's this, the Exige S Club Racer.

Like the Club Racer Elise just replaced by the 20th Anniversary, the new Exige is a tad lighter (15kg) than standard with a few styling tweaks to mark it out as well. The weight saving comes from a lighter battery, lighter doors, new seats and a new centre console. So the Club Racer kerbweight is 1,161kg but with performance unchanged from the Exige S (four seconds to 62mph, 170mph top speed) and identical downforce (42kg at 100mph) as well.

Paint options for the Exige Club Racer are Metallic White, Exige Orange, Metallic Yellow and optional Matt Black. On all colours the front splitter, rear wing, roof and mirrors are black with Club Racer decals on the seat, dash and wings also marking it out.

Lotus claims the Club Racer extras are worth £4,500 while only adding £2,400 to the price of an Exige S(note the Club Racer is only available as a coupe). That puts it at £56,900, just £1,500 more than a Cayman GTS and £7,500 less than a GT4. Orders are being taken from today - form an orderly queue!

[suffolk009]

If only Caterham would make an S Club model for their everlasting 7.

(I'm here all week...)