£48K Too Much for an Exige?
Discussion
I posted yesterday on a thread about the new Exige S which with a few decent options put the price up to £48K
Given that the Elise was originally made as a relatively cheap sports car do you think Lotus has moved too far away from the original concept?
I know it has fantastic performance and is just, if not more, as capable than a lot of other cars costing far more but for me paying nearly £50K for a car with a 1.8 litre, 4 cylinder engine is just asking too much.
I bought my old n/a S2 Exige for just over £32K and for me thats about the highest price point for a small Lotus.
Views?
Given that the Elise was originally made as a relatively cheap sports car do you think Lotus has moved too far away from the original concept?
I know it has fantastic performance and is just, if not more, as capable than a lot of other cars costing far more but for me paying nearly £50K for a car with a 1.8 litre, 4 cylinder engine is just asking too much.
I bought my old n/a S2 Exige for just over £32K and for me thats about the highest price point for a small Lotus.
Views?
If you are buying a 48k car, FFS 2k on paint?I fully agree
I think I will leave the Lotus ownership because prices are starting to be crazy for what you get.
I wonder if the best car is not the basic elise S. Superb chassis and handling. High speed is not the target.
I am also thinking finding a S1 as track toy and move to another marque as week end toy.
I think I will leave the Lotus ownership because prices are starting to be crazy for what you get.
I wonder if the best car is not the basic elise S. Superb chassis and handling. High speed is not the target.
I am also thinking finding a S1 as track toy and move to another marque as week end toy.
bher said:
I wonder if the best car is not the basic elise S. Superb chassis and handling. High speed is not the target.
I agree but when you have a car with a fantastic chassis and handling you always end up wanting more power.I was reading an old EVO issue last night with the COTY 1996 article. The Elise S won the first part for 'real world' cars and was taken down to the South of France to take on the supercars. They commented how difficult the lack of power made overtaking, even when other cars were doing modest speeds.
That would become frustrating especially when you need to overtake regularly when you get stuck behind slow cars on B road runs. Lack of power in my first S1 was the reason I sold it and bought the Exige.
The list of cars you can buy for £50K is mouth watering.
Davey S2 said:
bher said:
I wonder if the best car is not the basic elise S. Superb chassis and handling. High speed is not the target.
I agree but when you have a car with a fantastic chassis and handling you always end up wanting more power.I was reading an old EVO issue last night with the COTY 1996 article. The Elise S won the first part for 'real world' cars and was taken down to the South of France to take on the supercars. They commented how difficult the lack of power made overtaking, even when other cars were doing modest speeds.
That would become frustrating especially when you need to overtake regularly when you get stuck behind slow cars on B road runs. Lack of power in my first S1 was the reason I sold it and bought the Exige.
If you want to "compete" against big boys (Porsche, M3, ...) you need to pay a lot more and that become crazy in comparison with other car for +/- 45000£
btw I think it is 2006 eCoty
Edited by bher on Thursday 22 November 08:43
A £48k Exige literally is the absolute most top spec car you can get from Lotus. everything; performance pack, magnesium wheels, air con, flippy paint, you name it. So you really are looking at the pinnacle of what they offer at the moment. Start comparing it to other £50k cars and you'll be looking at base specs of those you were perhaps thinking of.
The bigger question (and was being discussed a bit on the other thread in GG) is what the base level pricing is like. Relatively speaking the Elise S is now more affordanble than the base spec S1 in 1996 - so more people are entering into Lotus ownership than ever before.
You need to have top of the range cars. I doubt many people will end up with a £48k Exige - how many people tick every options box on a 911 Turbo or Ferrari 430? The tick many, but not every. (admittedly the options list on the latter cars are slightly longer
).
So, £48k is not too much I don't think for the absolute most top spec Exige that Lotus do.
The bigger question (and was being discussed a bit on the other thread in GG) is what the base level pricing is like. Relatively speaking the Elise S is now more affordanble than the base spec S1 in 1996 - so more people are entering into Lotus ownership than ever before.
You need to have top of the range cars. I doubt many people will end up with a £48k Exige - how many people tick every options box on a 911 Turbo or Ferrari 430? The tick many, but not every. (admittedly the options list on the latter cars are slightly longer
).So, £48k is not too much I don't think for the absolute most top spec Exige that Lotus do.
Rob S said:
kevin ritson said:
Mind you, those Gaymans cost a fortune once you've put a 'basic' spec on them
And they cant even get away from Focus RS' in my experience 
The biggest factor is the person behind the wheel.
A Focus RS cant do 170 though
Pikey followed me up a superb windy hill in Northern spain in his Cayman and although I pulled away slightly, when we got out at the top we both had the biggest grins on our faces you could ever imagine. So from that point of view, both cars absolutely hit the nail on the head.
(I still rememeber his smile perfectly; he was grinning ear-to-ear!)
(I still rememeber his smile perfectly; he was grinning ear-to-ear!)
Indeed, don't forget that way back in 2002 a Sport 190 was £33k before adding a good few more options and still only had 187bhp, I'm pretty sure that even back then the price could have nudged £40k with a few judicious option boxes ticked.
Tony is right though, there won't be many people that will tick all of the Exige option boxes, the press cars are 9 times out of 10 loaded with most if not all the options so that people can see what is available and cherry pick from there.
Tony is right though, there won't be many people that will tick all of the Exige option boxes, the press cars are 9 times out of 10 loaded with most if not all the options so that people can see what is available and cherry pick from there.
Before I say anything further I own a Exige S with Sport's pack and A/c which I brought with only 2800 miles on. An Exige S with 240bhp shouldn't be any more than 39k doesn't matter how you dress it up, I know how much Sport 190's were back in the day but come on it's ludicrous to expect anyone to pay any more then 40k for one. I'm a Lotus nut but even I wouldn't pay any more then 40k for an Exige, it's getting towards the time when Lotus need to draw a line under the Exige with the forthcoming Eagle, hopefully the Exige can return to it's root's and no longer need to fill the gap of an optimum performance car for the brand, I wouldn't buy one but your getting towards the price then of a Noble and it's a faster track car than the Exige S, they do need to be careful here. People will just switch and buy either a 2nd hand Porsche GT3 or theirs conversion's on older car's I.e. Honda/Audi. Lotus have to listen to us as to be honest at the moment were 80% of their customer base, offer conversion's on already sold Exige S's & R's then pull new customer's in with the currant line up but be sensible with the pricing structure
Boggy
Boggy
L100NYY said:
I just specced a Cayman NON S as a little experiment on the Porsche website and got the price up to
£ 49,275.00
Ouch.
That gets 0-60mph in 6.1secs and a top speed of 160mph.
Wouldn't buy one mate but you can get a Cayman S with good spec new for around 51k£ 49,275.00
Ouch.
That gets 0-60mph in 6.1secs and a top speed of 160mph.
Boggy
Edited by Boggy on Thursday 22 November 11:03
That really is the top top spec though Boggy. The white one in Lipscombs at the moment is about as good a spec as you could ever wish for and that's approx 40k. Ok it doesn't have the power pack, but that doesn't take it up to £48k.
As L100NNY said - the press cars are loaded with every option possible, hence the near £50k price. How many owners would actually get that, though?!
As L100NNY said - the press cars are loaded with every option possible, hence the near £50k price. How many owners would actually get that, though?!
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