German Car Zone

Merc1 · 07-24-2007, 02:15 AM

On the Limit in the Lotus Track Car That's Coming to the U.S.

The cockpit of the 2008 Lotus 2-Eleven is small and spartan. There's no trim to speak of, just a tiny leather-rimmed steering wheel, some aluminum pedals and a stubby shift lever. Snug down the strap of your helmet, tighten the belts of your racing harness and reach for the starter button.

The Lotus 2-Eleven starts instantly and settles into a jaunty mechanical thrum. Select 1st gear, ease out the clutch and slip quietly onto the circuit at Lotus headquarters in Hethel, England. It was here that Colin Chapman rolled out the Formula 1 cars that made Lotus the most innovative automotive brand in the world during a golden era between 1967 and 1978. But there's no time to think about that now, because the 2008 Lotus 2-Eleven is quick — savagely quick.

It is essentially a stripped-down roofless Lotus Elise with a highly tuned version of the Lotus Exige S's supercharged Toyota inline-4. It's the most extreme Lotus in a generation, and also the fastest. And it's also street-legal and coming to the U.S.

Lotus Circuit Car Concept

Lotus has a history of building track cars based on its Lotus Elise, which has been in production since September 1996. Back in 2000, Lotus introduced the 340R, a bizarre, buglike creation that looked like it had escaped from a sci-fi movie. "I'm going to get into trouble for saying this, but the 340R was a designer's vision," says Nick Adams. "The 2-Eleven is an engineer's response to the 340R." Adams is the engineering manager at Lotus Sport, the skunkworks that operates the tuning and motorsport activities at Lotus.

Although the 2-Eleven derives its lineage from the 340R, it began life as the Lotus Circuit Car concept, which was built in 2005 to celebrate the centenary of the well-known Shelsey Walsh hill climb. Public reaction was so strong that Lotus decided to put the car into production. The track-day market is booming across the world, yet the aspirations Lotus has for the 2-Eleven are modest, and Adams expects to build no more than 300 cars over the next three years. Its designation as the Lotus 2-Eleven recalls the lightweight, front-engine Lotus Eleven, a racing car built from 1956-'58 at the original Lotus headquarters at Cheshunt.

All the Best Bits

This car is really a hybrid of several Lotus models. The cockpit is pinched from the original Elise Series 1, which had higher sills than the second-generation car. The rear end comes from the Series 2 so it can accommodate the supercharged 1.8-liter Toyota engine that is shared with the Exige Cup 255 racing cars.

A 218-horsepower version of this engine can be found in the Exige S, but once the supercharged engine is fitted with a larger intercooler and the Lotus T4e engine control module, it develops 252 hp at 8,000 rpm and 179 pound-feet of torque at 7,000 rpm, an improvement of 16 percent and 26 percent, respectively.

Just like the Elise, the suspension features double wishbones at every corner, but the ride height has been dramatically lowered by 3.9 inches at the front of the car and 4.3 inches at the rear. There are two-way adjustable dampers from Öhlins and an adjustable front antiroll bar from Lotus Sport. A limited-slip differential is an option, but the Lotus engineers claim it undermines the feel of the steering.

Full Article:

First Drive: 2008 Lotus 2-Eleven

I don't know how I missed that this is coming to the U.S. Lotus cars really do exclude posers for real. Look at this thing.

M

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German Car Zone

Edmunds Inside Line - First Drive: 2008 Lotus 2-Eleven