2019 Lotus Exige Sport 410 | UK Review
The slightly more road-biased, 'ultimate' edition of the Exige has arrived. It well earns the description.
An unending procession of Lotus model derivatives has become a source of amusement around here, but the Sport 410 is the 'ultimate' series-three Exige - and this time Lotus promises it means that literally.
As far as the line-up goes, this car displaces the Sport 380 and as such sits between the 'base' Sport 350 and the heroically uncompromised Cup 430 track tool. That car was quite a leap for the Exige in terms of aerodynamics and power, and the point of the Sport 430 is to take all that and inject better road manners into the package. It's why the Sport 410 makes 150kg of downforce at top speed, will more or less level-peg a McLaren F1 in its first few gears, and has a single-mass flywheel and Alcantara-clad bucket seats, yet you still get a Bluetooth connection.
CEO Jean-Marc Gales variously describes the new car as 'more fun than a Cup 430', 'a very docile beast' and capable of 'blowing away' the upcoming Porsche Cayman GT4, flat-six from the GT3 and all. As usual from monsieur, it's fighting talk.
This is an expensive beast, mind. At £85,600 it may be roughly the cost of a the new Fiesta ST less expensive than a Cup 430, but then there are options, many of which seem irresistible. Whether you go for Coupe or Roadster, a carbon lid costs £3,000. You can also get a carbon hood for the instrument binnacle (£1,000), sill covers (£1,200), rear diffuser (£1,200) and superbly theatrical barge boards (£2,800 - go on...). There's also a titanium exhaust that saves ten kilos (£5,500) and plenty of colour options, the most expensive of which - for example, the Olive Green of the Roadster seen here - costs a hefty five grand.
Given this car is meant to work almost as well on the road as it does on track, you can also specify air conditioning (£1,250), a sound system (£400), sound insulation (£500), cruise control (£110) and full carpets and mats (£450) to further isolate you from the underbody clatter of road debris.
A six-figure Exige that isn't even the range-topper is dangerously achievable, then, but then again, never has an Exige packed such broad appeal as this one does. The chassis is pure Cup 430 - including the lightweight double-wishbone suspension and those deliciously intricate Nitron dampers. In the Sport 380 they're manually adjustable for both high-speed compression (16 clicks) and rebound (24 clicks), but there's also a third setting for low-speed compression (24 clicks) and it's this that gives the Sport 410 unfamiliar dynamic breadth.
In terms of powertrain this car is essentially a detuned Cup 430. The Toyota-sourced supercharged 3.5-litre V6 makes 416hp (or 410bhp)and isn't quite as peaky as it is in the more expensive model, but the torque curve has been flattened a touch. There's now 310lb ft on offer all the way from 3,000rpm to 7,000rpm. In a car that weighs a little as 1,054kg dry, it's enough for a 0-60mph of 3.3 seconds (something that's partly down to the fact you can now hit 60mph in second, rather than having to snag third, as you do in the Sport 380). Top speed is 180mph for the Coupe and 145mph for the Roadster.
Lotus laid on two cars for us to try - an Olive Green Roadster setup for road and a track-ready Gulf Blue Coupe with an identical suspension setup to what you'd find in the Cup 430. On the deceptively quick circuit at Hethel, the latter felt as you might expect for car using Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres and boasting a power-to-weight ratio that's more GT2 RS than Turbo S. Owing to such a low-slung driving position, it feels absurdly, breath-takingly quick, with nigh unbreakable rear traction (those tyres are now 20mm wider than what you'll find on a Sport 380) and a front axle that brings new meaning the phrase 'nailed on'. There is adjustability, but it's not of the gung-ho AMG variety. There's no limited-slip differential, for a start.
To better tolerate the beating many of these cars will get on trackdays, the Sport 410 gets a larger clutch than the 380 and several new coolers, not least for the gearbox, which takes the form of Lotus's 'Precision Shift' six-speed manual - the one with the open-gate shift. The J-hook brakes are carried over from the Cup 430, and they're fantastically light in terms of servo assistance and a reassuring presence as you dive deeper into corners than you'd previously thought sensible, or possible.
Out on the road the unassisted steering remains busy - it'll respond to the most effortlessly delicate of inputs one moment but requires a decidedly firm hand the next as the front axle latches onto a ripple in the road surface. You take the wheat with the chaff in any Lotus other than the Evora. Meanwhile the damping characteristics are such that issues of ride fade into the background. That is some trick to pull off in such a pared-back car, and while body control is surgically crisp, there's a surprisingly soft veneer beneath it whether you're pootling through a village at 30mph or pinning the throttle as the speed limit lifts. It's all relative, mind, so don't expect this car to ride like a Cayman S.
While we're on the subject of pinning the throttle, regulations have forced Lotus to ditch its switchable sports exhaust. There's now a valve that opens at 4,500rpm, beneath which this engine's ferocity remains tolerably latent for day-today-driving. Above it, all hell breaks loose. It's still one of the most arrestingly serrated exhaust notes money can buy, and quite outrageously loud.
Should this car turn out to be the final S3 Exige (frankly, don't hold your breath, despite what Lotus claims), it's some high to go out on. In the world of road cars - beyond, perhaps, the desperately impractical likes of the BAC Mono and Ariel Atom - you'll struggle to find a device that will get your heart pumping quite so quickly without ever cloying up your insides with fear. Given the Sport 410's broadened window of usability, and less fanatical demand for its owner to make compromises, for some that'll be well worth the asking price.
| Lotus Exige Sport 410 - Specifications | |
|---|---|
| Engine | V6, 3456cc, supercharged petrol |
| Transmission | 6-speed manual |
| Power (hp) | 416hp @ 7000rpm |
| Torque (lb ft) | 310lb ft @ 3000-7000rpm |
| 0-62mph | 3.4sec |
| Top speed | 180mph (coupe) |
| Weight | 1108kg |
| MPG | 26.6 |
| CO2 | 240g/km |
| Price | £85,600 |
Richard Lane
This looks like yet another minuscule variation of a car that is more or less Elise derived and going back to 1996....
I'm sure its a great car, but I'm bored now - can we have eventually something genuinely new?
http://www.evo.co.uk/lotus/exige/21252/lotus-exige...
And here's a picture of an olive green car.
This looks like yet another minuscule variation of a car that is more or less Elise derived and going back to 1996....
I'm sure its a great car, but I'm bored now - can we have eventually something genuinely new?
When are Lotus going to morph into the business they really should be, with a range of cars that allows them to be profitable and innovative at the same time? You can't keep folding the same idea different ways if you want to move beyond being a niche, like say, Caterham. Where is the ambition?
ETA: Although having said that they have at least followed the rest of the industry down the "charge an absolute fortune for utterly pointless carbon fibre trinkets" route.
If I could, I would buy one over a Porsche.
Why no mechanical slip diff? Seems odd, though doesn’t seem to have a negative impact
This looks like yet another minuscule variation of a car that is more or less Elise derived and going back to 1996....
I'm sure its a great car, but I'm bored now - can we have eventually something genuinely new?
When are Lotus going to morph into the business they really should be, with a range of cars that allows them to be profitable and innovative at the same time? You can't keep folding the same idea different ways if you want to move beyond being a niche, like say, Caterham. Where is the ambition?
Sure they are selling them, (in small numbers) but their cars are now beyond the means of the average man in the street. So now, they are purely the preserve of the rich who are after a track car. And the rich who clearly may want to change it every couple months to have the latest, fastest one.
If any other manufacturer kept updating their cars every couple months, there would be a thread so long, it would take a year to read it.
January - Audi RS3 400
March - Audi RS3-R 430
May - Audi RS3-RS 460
July Audi RS3-RS-R 500
September - Audi RS3-RS-RS (530)
November - Audi RS3-RS-RS-R (560)
Yet :Lotus do it, and no one bats an eyelid.
Yet the purists (who have probably never owned a Lotus) barked on that they didn't want the current cars to change, and the smell of glue gave the cars character.
Like him or not, Dany Bahar brought a team together that could have made Lotus great. A Great company that produced good looking cars that could compete with other brands (and not just track day cars or kit cars) that would make people (like me) want to go out and own a Lotus.
I think his plans were ambitious, and maybe too ambitious to launch 5 cars in 5 years. So even if a new car launched every 3 years, it would still have been better than what we have now. A new derivative (more power) of the same car every couple months.
Sure they are selling them, (in small numbers) but their cars are now beyond the means of the average man in the street. So now, they are purely the preserve of the rich who are after a track car. And the rich who clearly may want to change it every couple months to have the latest, fastest one.
If any other manufacturer kept updating their cars every couple months, there would be a thread so long, it would take a year to read it.
January - Audi RS3 400
March - Audi RS3-R 430
May - Audi RS3-RS 460
July Audi RS3-RS-R 500
September - Audi RS3-RS-RS (530)
November - Audi RS3-RS-RS-R (560)
Yet :Lotus do it, and no one bats an eyelid.
If we go though the Exige S V6 releases:
Exige S V6 - Sep 2011 (although it was put forward as a 2012 model)
Exige V6 Cup - Jan 2013
Exige S V6 Roadster - July 2013
Exige Cup 360 - August 2015
Exige Sport 380 - November 2016
Exige Cup 380 - April 2017
Exige Cup 430 - November 2017
Exige Sport 410 - May 2018
So on average, one every six months, and it's not always the same update (as in, it's not a new 'normal' car every six months). Still, I think when you add that to the steady stream of Elises and Evoras, which also seem to get released at random times, it makes the whole company seem a little silly.
What makes me concerned is that there doesn't seem to be any plan to how they release things. They could have boiled all those separate releases down into:
Exige S V6 + Roadster - Mid 2012
Exige Sport + Cup 380 - Mid 2015
Exige Sport 410 +Cup 430 - Mid 2018
This seems a lot more cohesive to me. Add to that some organising of the Evora and Elise releases and I think it would make the whole company seem a little (a lot) more organised.
Jean Marc Gales seems very very competent on the production side of things, by all accounts the cars are much better quality on the inside than they were 10 years ago. Maybe they need someone like him for the marketing/future planning department?
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