The Lotus Evora may still be getting most of the headlines for Lotus, but the sports car maker quietly unveiled the Exige Cup 260 at the 2008 Paris Motor Show. Based on the Exige Cup Car, the 260 treatment makes the Exige and even more serious track day competitor.
In Exige Cup 260 guise, the already potent sports car sheds another 38 kg – thanks to extensive use of carbon fiber – keeping the car’s overall weight to less than 900 kg.
Thanks to that focus on lightweight and a 260 horsepower powerplant, the Exige Cup 260 can scoot from 0-60 in less than four seconds. The 260’s lightweight materials should also translate into better road holding figures.
Despite the Exige Cup 260’s serious track potential, it’s actually a fully road legal car – at least in Europe and Asia where it will be sold. The road legality is necessary as the Exige Cup 260 was designed to conform to 2009 Lotus Cup Europe racing standards, which deems all participating cars must be street legal.
Like most cool cars from Europe, it looks as though U.S. consumers will miss out on the Exige Cup 260.
10/03, 9:23 AM
posted by:
Need more oil for GM
Lotus needs to dump that sludgepit Toyota engine for a GM Ecotec
10/03, 9:28 AM
posted by:
hfry
^^^^^^ im with stupid ^^^^^^^^
10/03, 9:35 AM
posted by:
Stinky007
^ I LOLed
The engine is good enough, so why spend more money on a different engine!?
10/03, 11:16 AM
posted by:
Need4SSpeed
I love this car. It looks so bad-ass to in this livery. 0-60 under 4 seconds? Wow!
The Toyota sourced 1.8 i-VVT 4cyl is a pretty good engine. But it’s old. Not that that matters. I do think that if they did use the LNF (2.0L DI VVT 260hp & 260ft lbs torque) I know the solstic GXP and Sky RL owners are getting 350-400whp on just a bigger turbo, + bigger intercooler, charge piping, and supporting mods of course. Imagine one of these with that kind of HP…
But yeah amazing car none-the-less.
10/03, 11:18 AM
posted by:
California GT
Yeas i’m sure Lotus is going to be all over a GM Ecotec engine…with its 5000 K redline. They need a ligter car not a slower one.
10/03, 11:43 AM
posted by:
johnnycanuck
Put a freakin’ Briggs & Stratton in the damn thing- just bring it over.
10/03, 1:05 PM
posted by:
beatusmongous
I don’t know what looks better, the car or the girl?
10/03, 1:40 PM
posted by:
yarddog82abn
NEED MORE OIL YOU CRACK ME UP…………
GM ENGINE IN A LOTUS…….THAT’S A GOOD ONE, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO SAY NEXT? A 350 CHEVY SMALL BLOCK IN A BUGATTI..???……..LOL…LOL…LOL…….
10/03, 2:30 PM
posted by:
urmomspanties
I’m still a bit upset that they never put the S2000 motor in these. Its a FAR superior motor to the Toyotas and much more bullet proof…
Great looking car BUT once again, the US market doesn’t get a kick-ass car…
Sucks to be American now-a-days!
10/03, 4:14 PM
posted by:
dvsutton
The S2000 motor is a pile of junk too, just like this sludged up Toyota POS. Trust me I know a thing or two about Toyota reliability! My Toyota Camry’s engine failed under the famous sludge coverup. My son’s 8k mile Tundra has had a cracked camshaft and rattles like its been driven on railroad traks for 100k miles. Needless to say I don’t like Japanese brands anymore for good reason.
10/03, 4:39 PM
posted by:
LS7
What’s up with people crying “Bring it over?”
You’re not going to get one even if they brought 1,000,000 units over. You’ll still be starring at it on your monitor. It’s actually better off that it never comes over, so you don’t have to face that reality.
10/03, 5:20 PM
posted by:
Get Real
The Land of the Free…..what a joke we have become in 40 years.
The Feds run our lives, tax us, and smell our tailpipes then tax us some more to save banks.
And we can’t buy a small, low production, car.
10/03, 6:21 PM
posted by:
Mr. Piston
Speak for yourself LS7…
10/03, 7:36 PM
posted by:
gtv6
The elise, in general is a better road going car. It’s already an all out sports car – looks better than the exige, you can drop the top, and it has better visibility. The exige is really a track car, I wouldn’t spend the extra money… I’d rather have an elise.
10/04, 10:13 AM
posted by:
Need4SSpeed
“California GT
Yeas i’m sure Lotus is going to be all over a GM Ecotec engine…with its 5000 K redline. They need a ligter car not a slower one.”
Actually it’s around 7k with the 2.0L Ecotec…. Plus what’s the point of having RPM’s if there’s no real top end power for those high RPM’s cough… (V-TEC)!!!
10/04, 11:19 AM
posted by:
maxcar
put the upcoming 2.0 t from the next gen. vw gti-r.
there are prolly a dozen exiges and elises in my small town. i about blow my load every time i see one. pitty i don’t fit in it. otherwise there’d be 13.
10/06, 8:08 AM
posted by:
JohnnyBlazE
Hah, my mate has an Elise with a Supercharged Honda V-Tec (CTR sourced I think).
The noise, behind your head, is intense.
And with over 400 bhp/tonne, can’t complain – it’s already dangerous enough in the wet, Need4SSpeed, trust me – 400bhp on such a light RWD car is always reserved for dry days… In the UK, where his car is, where I am also, it rains too much for more bhp!
Even before it was supercharged it was an immense force.
Quick as hell, noisy, brutal, go kart handling… Sublime.
10/06, 4:39 PM
posted by:
chj123
Response to need more oil for gm , firstly the engine in the exige is good enough , its powerful and etremely reliable when compared to most other engines and also lotus pretty much uses a gm engine in its europa , its the 2.0 turbo out of the vx220 turbo , good engine as well but cant quite live up to the toyota block
10/07, 11:48 AM
posted by:
leozug
i can always count on heading over to leftlanenews and reading some of the stupidest comments on the internet.