Now, you’ve probably heard the term “race carfare the road” plenty of times and let’s be honest, it’s a bit of a cliché. With the new Lotus Exige Cup 380 on the other hand, you can understand why the term has been used. Available now, only 60 will be made, with prices starting from a rather hefty £83,000.
Track Focused But Still Road Legal
Yes, I agree, that is a rather steep price tag. It does however get you some nerdy levels of engineering though. The standard Exige Sport 380 is not exactly a porker, but thanks to clever weight savings here and there, the cup version is lighter still and weighs just 1,057kg. Not only is it slimmer of the month, but it offers 43% more downforce than the Sport model – 200kg to be exact. This is thanks to engineering so OCD, that even the windscreen wiper has been tweaked to better aid airflow over the car.
Underneath this light, sleek body you’ll find the same 3.5 litre supercharged V6 engine as the Exige Race 380 and produces 375bp and 410Nm of torque. This means the Cup will sprint to a 60mph in just 3.4 seconds and will continue to a top speed of 175mph. This grunt is mated to an open-gate 6 speed manual gearbox and fed to the rear wheels, as you’d expect. The car is already track focussed, but you can more options to further its racing prowess.
Racing Features
The car already comes with features such as five driving modes and a variable traction control knob, but buyers can select options to make their car feel even more at home. Factory fitted options include an FIA compliant roll cage, full race harness, fire extinguisher and airbag removal. If you don’t fancy any of these, then you can still enjoy the lightweight forged alloys wrapped in Michelin Pilot Sport Cup tyres and two-way adjustable dampers with adjustable front and rear anti-roll bars.
It’s little wonder that this model was able to set the fastest time for a road-legal Exige down at Lotus’ Hethel track – 1 minute 26 seconds. The new model is available now, but only 60 will be made, which I can imagine will be sold almost as quickly as the car drives!
