Lotus Exige Cup 260: Into the rising sun
BY Dejan Jovanovic
Published: August 16, 2009, 17:43
Everything about Lotus Exige Cup 260 is deafening and unforgiving.
Lotus says the Exige Cup 260 can reach 245kph, but you'd struggle to get the needle to budge off 235kph.
You can dismiss a series of bends faster than a class of fifth-graders on the last day of school.
Dump the clutch, lay down some elevens, and you'll be seeing 100kph in 4.1secs
Lotus says the Exige Cup 260 can reach 245kph, but you'd struggle to get the needle to budge off 235kph.
70 litres of 98 Octane go in here. The other side hasexternal electrical cut-off and fire extinguisher switches.
Umm, some lights... Probably FIA-approved
Ultra-light, 16in wheels are surrounded by semi-slick Yokohama rubber.
The steering wheel is about the same diameter as a tea saucer, but is super communicative
There's no rear window over the engine cover, so the centre mirror is totally useless
Electrical cut-off switch in the centre console and a multi-point fire extinguisher switch
Weight saving is evident everywhere, the Lotus even has holes cut in the footwell
The driver's seat is unique and FIA-approved. With a passenger in the car, you'll be literally rubbing shoulders
Source: Gulfnews
Published: August 16, 2009, 17:43
Everything about Lotus Exige Cup 260 is deafening and unforgiving.
Thank Goodness for Google Earth. As you may have figured out already by looking at the screaming, yellow banshee on these pages with looks so menacing that you'd half expect it to pop out into life like in one of those three-dimensional books, the Lotus Exige Cup 260 doesn't have a sat-nav.
It doesn't have a lot of things actually: no power steering, no radio, no glove box, no rear window heater, no rear window in fact, no fancy LEDs, no adjustable seats, no adjustable steering column, no cruise control, no carpets, no ashtray and no way to buy it in the UAE. You could always import one for Dh350,000 on a personal import basis from adrenalinsportscars.com, but anyway, by now I don't think I have to tell you that other features such as rear seats, parking sensors, a sunroof and an iPod connector are also missing.
This thing is raw. If it were a steak, the Cup 260 would come served in a pool of its own blood, basted in some blood, with a side serving of blood. I'm floored as soon as I lay my eyes on it. I've never paid much attention to Lotuses (Lotii?) before, paying respect only to the original Giugiaro wedge that became the Esprit (oh, and of course the 'Tina, I can't forget the 'Tina), and even then, I only ever loved that in four-cylinder turbo form. But this is more menacing than Dennis. It's pure function and purpose. An engineer's dream turned into reality, and therefore, knee-tremblingly beautiful.
And like I said, there is no sat-nav, and flooring this road-legal racecar up and down Shaikh Zayed Road would be considered sacrilegious at the Lotus factory. I have to find something twisty and I have to find it quickly, so before I strap myself with the four-point Schroth harnesses into the Recaro bucket, I have to make a stopover at Google Earth. Chris, the snapper, is getting increasingly irritable about his almighty light worsening. We have to be on location for the photoshoot by 7am, latest. It's going to be a race against the rising sun.
I scroll and scroll, but when I zoom out, every road in the UAE looks tight and twisty on my laptop. After a scan over the mountains dividing Dubai and Fujairah, Google Earth finally finishes rendering its satellite image (zoomed in this time) and uncovers what will become my yellow rocket's own Yellow Brick Road. It's the Maliha Road, starting in Sharjah and shooting straight through the desert over Routes 611 and 55, then carving its way though the canyons and the Harra mountains before straightening out again briefly as you hit Kalba on the Fujairah coast. The mountain bit looks majestic on my laptop screen and I know it's going to suit the Cup 260 down to its last nut and bolt.
It's now just before 5am, and Chris is frustratingly revving his Seat Leon FR, ready to shoot off towards Fujairah. It takes me a bit longer to launch off. First, there is the gymnastic act of getting into the Exige, which the painfully low roofline and wide door sill don't make any easier. Then, once I drop my bottom into the excruciatingly tight FIA-approved driver's seat, it's a game of contortion as I connect the four points of the FIA-approved seatbelt. Getting in and out of this thing should definitely be on a masochist's list of "things to do before I die". There is a way around the struggle though; once you're in, just stay in. Fine by me.
I slip into first in the close-ratio, aluminium six-speed gearbox and the Lotus Exige Cup 260 catapults off the line with a loud, expensive-sounding bang coming from the transaxle. I honestly think the transmission demolished itself under the force of the violent launch, and is lying in pieces on the road behind. But I needn't worry.
Everything about this car is deafening and unforgiving. The mid-mounted engine resonates a metallic, raspy sound, as if the pistons are disintegrating, leaving the cylinders to piercingly rattle the steel pieces inside. The 1.8-litre four cylinder Toyota-sourced unit is lightweight and compact, using aluminium in much of its construction. This is not your off-the-shelf Corolla lump, though. Lotus developed the ECU, multi-point sequential fuel injection, electronic ignition and throttle control, the supercharger, intake manifold, induction system and air-to-air intercooler. The whole thing feels like it's planted on top of my head.
Its immense heat radiates throughout the claustrophobic cockpit despite the AC panting at full blast. (May as well delete that option and save even more weight off the 890kg dry total.)
Oh, and its power output lends the car its name, since this set-up siphons out 258bhp. Have you got any idea what that means? OK, stop torturing yourself with the maths, I'll help you out. That's 290bhp per tonne. Some more number crunching tells you that the fat Nissan GT-R only equals to 271bhp/tonne, the Porsche 911 Turbo manages 298bhp/tonne, and the Ferrari F430 also betters the Lotus at 318bhp/tonne. Yet, the Exige Cup 260 would run the Fezza in a drag race neck and neck at 4.1secs to 100kph.
But nothing, and I mean nothing, not even the KTM X-Bow, corners and steers with the immediacy of this little yellow wonder. The comically tiny steering wheel leads the light front end (there's pretty much no weight over the front axle, but a brilliant chassis means understeer isn't an issue) inch-perfectly into any and every direction you point it in. The super-short lock-to-lock ratio means the steering is immensely reactive. This thing can almost steer by thought alone, it's that quick. The fully independent suspension - which can be adjusted any way geometrically possible to suit track action or a specific driving style - provides a stiff and bumpy but communicative ride, feeding back inputs to the driver, which make handling this slingshot an extremely intuitive experience. A chimp could drive the Cup 260 quickly. But it would take a brave man to reach its limits.
It turns out our chosen route is the perfect setting for unleashing the capabilities of this car. Lotus says the Exige Cup 260 can reach 245kph, but you'd struggle to get the needle to budge off 235kph. So it's not a fast car. But it's a terrifyingly quick car, if you know what I mean. It moves from gear to gear remarkably rapidly, which means acceleration is the key with this gearing and power delivery set-up. Oh, and the demolishing of switchback roads is another key feature here. You can dismiss a series of bends faster than a class of fifth-graders on the last day of school.
I slowly roll back into the office, stumble out of that Recaro and onto the pavement, my body aching and my mouth gasping for breath.
It absolutely blew my mind, left me with cramps, a bad back and clothes drenched in sweat. We won the race in the end, obviously, as the early-morning photographs on these pages prove. But we won at the cost of me needing a day off. Goodness knows if I'd kept the car for another day, I would've mysteriously "misplaced" Chris's memory card and done it all over again at the next break of dawn.
(With thanks to Keith Alderson for loaning us his Lotus. Brave man!)
Specs
* Model: Exige Cup 260
* Engine: 1.8-litre supercharged
* Transmission: Six-speed manual
* Max power: 258bhp @ 8,000rpm
* Max torque: 236Nm @ 6,000rpm
* Top speed: 245kph (rated)
* 0-100kph: 4.1secs
* Price Dh350,000
* Plus: The purest road-legal sportscar experience
* Minus: Hot, very, very hot
It doesn't have a lot of things actually: no power steering, no radio, no glove box, no rear window heater, no rear window in fact, no fancy LEDs, no adjustable seats, no adjustable steering column, no cruise control, no carpets, no ashtray and no way to buy it in the UAE. You could always import one for Dh350,000 on a personal import basis from adrenalinsportscars.com, but anyway, by now I don't think I have to tell you that other features such as rear seats, parking sensors, a sunroof and an iPod connector are also missing.
This thing is raw. If it were a steak, the Cup 260 would come served in a pool of its own blood, basted in some blood, with a side serving of blood. I'm floored as soon as I lay my eyes on it. I've never paid much attention to Lotuses (Lotii?) before, paying respect only to the original Giugiaro wedge that became the Esprit (oh, and of course the 'Tina, I can't forget the 'Tina), and even then, I only ever loved that in four-cylinder turbo form. But this is more menacing than Dennis. It's pure function and purpose. An engineer's dream turned into reality, and therefore, knee-tremblingly beautiful.
And like I said, there is no sat-nav, and flooring this road-legal racecar up and down Shaikh Zayed Road would be considered sacrilegious at the Lotus factory. I have to find something twisty and I have to find it quickly, so before I strap myself with the four-point Schroth harnesses into the Recaro bucket, I have to make a stopover at Google Earth. Chris, the snapper, is getting increasingly irritable about his almighty light worsening. We have to be on location for the photoshoot by 7am, latest. It's going to be a race against the rising sun.
I scroll and scroll, but when I zoom out, every road in the UAE looks tight and twisty on my laptop. After a scan over the mountains dividing Dubai and Fujairah, Google Earth finally finishes rendering its satellite image (zoomed in this time) and uncovers what will become my yellow rocket's own Yellow Brick Road. It's the Maliha Road, starting in Sharjah and shooting straight through the desert over Routes 611 and 55, then carving its way though the canyons and the Harra mountains before straightening out again briefly as you hit Kalba on the Fujairah coast. The mountain bit looks majestic on my laptop screen and I know it's going to suit the Cup 260 down to its last nut and bolt.
It's now just before 5am, and Chris is frustratingly revving his Seat Leon FR, ready to shoot off towards Fujairah. It takes me a bit longer to launch off. First, there is the gymnastic act of getting into the Exige, which the painfully low roofline and wide door sill don't make any easier. Then, once I drop my bottom into the excruciatingly tight FIA-approved driver's seat, it's a game of contortion as I connect the four points of the FIA-approved seatbelt. Getting in and out of this thing should definitely be on a masochist's list of "things to do before I die". There is a way around the struggle though; once you're in, just stay in. Fine by me.
I slip into first in the close-ratio, aluminium six-speed gearbox and the Lotus Exige Cup 260 catapults off the line with a loud, expensive-sounding bang coming from the transaxle. I honestly think the transmission demolished itself under the force of the violent launch, and is lying in pieces on the road behind. But I needn't worry.
Everything about this car is deafening and unforgiving. The mid-mounted engine resonates a metallic, raspy sound, as if the pistons are disintegrating, leaving the cylinders to piercingly rattle the steel pieces inside. The 1.8-litre four cylinder Toyota-sourced unit is lightweight and compact, using aluminium in much of its construction. This is not your off-the-shelf Corolla lump, though. Lotus developed the ECU, multi-point sequential fuel injection, electronic ignition and throttle control, the supercharger, intake manifold, induction system and air-to-air intercooler. The whole thing feels like it's planted on top of my head.
Its immense heat radiates throughout the claustrophobic cockpit despite the AC panting at full blast. (May as well delete that option and save even more weight off the 890kg dry total.)
Oh, and its power output lends the car its name, since this set-up siphons out 258bhp. Have you got any idea what that means? OK, stop torturing yourself with the maths, I'll help you out. That's 290bhp per tonne. Some more number crunching tells you that the fat Nissan GT-R only equals to 271bhp/tonne, the Porsche 911 Turbo manages 298bhp/tonne, and the Ferrari F430 also betters the Lotus at 318bhp/tonne. Yet, the Exige Cup 260 would run the Fezza in a drag race neck and neck at 4.1secs to 100kph.
But nothing, and I mean nothing, not even the KTM X-Bow, corners and steers with the immediacy of this little yellow wonder. The comically tiny steering wheel leads the light front end (there's pretty much no weight over the front axle, but a brilliant chassis means understeer isn't an issue) inch-perfectly into any and every direction you point it in. The super-short lock-to-lock ratio means the steering is immensely reactive. This thing can almost steer by thought alone, it's that quick. The fully independent suspension - which can be adjusted any way geometrically possible to suit track action or a specific driving style - provides a stiff and bumpy but communicative ride, feeding back inputs to the driver, which make handling this slingshot an extremely intuitive experience. A chimp could drive the Cup 260 quickly. But it would take a brave man to reach its limits.
It turns out our chosen route is the perfect setting for unleashing the capabilities of this car. Lotus says the Exige Cup 260 can reach 245kph, but you'd struggle to get the needle to budge off 235kph. So it's not a fast car. But it's a terrifyingly quick car, if you know what I mean. It moves from gear to gear remarkably rapidly, which means acceleration is the key with this gearing and power delivery set-up. Oh, and the demolishing of switchback roads is another key feature here. You can dismiss a series of bends faster than a class of fifth-graders on the last day of school.
I slowly roll back into the office, stumble out of that Recaro and onto the pavement, my body aching and my mouth gasping for breath.
It absolutely blew my mind, left me with cramps, a bad back and clothes drenched in sweat. We won the race in the end, obviously, as the early-morning photographs on these pages prove. But we won at the cost of me needing a day off. Goodness knows if I'd kept the car for another day, I would've mysteriously "misplaced" Chris's memory card and done it all over again at the next break of dawn.
(With thanks to Keith Alderson for loaning us his Lotus. Brave man!)
Specs
* Model: Exige Cup 260
* Engine: 1.8-litre supercharged
* Transmission: Six-speed manual
* Max power: 258bhp @ 8,000rpm
* Max torque: 236Nm @ 6,000rpm
* Top speed: 245kph (rated)
* 0-100kph: 4.1secs
* Price Dh350,000
* Plus: The purest road-legal sportscar experience
* Minus: Hot, very, very hot
Lotus says the Exige Cup 260 can reach 245kph, but you'd struggle to get the needle to budge off 235kph.
You can dismiss a series of bends faster than a class of fifth-graders on the last day of school.
Dump the clutch, lay down some elevens, and you'll be seeing 100kph in 4.1secs
Lotus says the Exige Cup 260 can reach 245kph, but you'd struggle to get the needle to budge off 235kph.
70 litres of 98 Octane go in here. The other side hasexternal electrical cut-off and fire extinguisher switches.
Umm, some lights... Probably FIA-approved
Ultra-light, 16in wheels are surrounded by semi-slick Yokohama rubber.
The steering wheel is about the same diameter as a tea saucer, but is super communicative
There's no rear window over the engine cover, so the centre mirror is totally useless
Electrical cut-off switch in the centre console and a multi-point fire extinguisher switch
Weight saving is evident everywhere, the Lotus even has holes cut in the footwell
The driver's seat is unique and FIA-approved. With a passenger in the car, you'll be literally rubbing shoulders
Source: Gulfnews
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