The Lotus Exige squeezed ever more power from a small four-cylinder engine
The Lotus Exige began in 2000 as a hardtop Elise with a 177-horsepower engine. Within a decade Lotus had coaxed around 256 horsepower from a supercharged 1.8-litre unit while cutting weight with carbon fibre. Its French name means demands, which suits a car built to ask a lot of its driver.
The first Exige used a Rover K Series engine tuned for high performance, revving to 7,800 rpm, with a five-speed manual gearbox, a claimed top speed of 219 km/h and a 0 to 97 km/h time of 4.7 seconds. Its body borrowed from the original Elise but added a fixed roof, a fastback tail with a tinted engine cover, a rear wing on a pylon and wider clamshells front and rear for a broader track.
In 2004 the Series 2 switched to a Yamaha-designed Toyota engine, the 2ZZ-GE, producing 190 horsepower, mated to a six-speed Aisin gearbox, with a standard car weighing 914 kilograms. Its splitter, roof scoop and spoiler existed purely for downforce, almost 45 kilograms at 161 km/h. A supercharged run of just 50 cars in 2005, painted only in Lotus Sport yellow or black and badged 240R, reached 97 km/h in a projected 3.9 seconds. The Exige S of 2006 brought supercharging to the regular range at 220 horsepower.
Increments kept coming. The S 240 of 2008 added 9 percent more power, racing brakes and 0 to 97 in 4.0 seconds for a suggested price of $65,690. The S 260 added about 7 percent more again and, thanks to carbon fibre, weighed 916 kilograms even with a full tank. There was also a 265E tuned for E85, a fuel that is 85 percent ethanol, whose higher octane allowed more boost, and a GT3 race version with 355 PS.
Special editions multiplied: a Union Jack livery, and a matte black Stealth with triple stripes, sold in Japan under that name and elsewhere as the Scura from October 2009. Later generations swapped the four-cylinder for a V6, making the Exige the bigger-engined sibling of the Elise, and production ended in 2021.
Source: Lotus Exige
