Still a far cry from 007's, the James Bond amphibious Lotus Esprit; the Lotus Exige is a Real-live-ready-2-drive Hybrid of Interest...
"And Lotus does it with a 1.8-liter inline-4 that gives you the kind of great fuel economy you'd expect from a Prius."From : Driver Review of Lotus Exige 2008 at Edmunds
Grand Prix racing season is upon us and the closest race track to this blogger in Watkins Glen, NY will have its first major race June 3-6, 2008.
"Lotus is credited with making the mid-engined layout popular for Indycars, developing the first monocoque Formula 1 chassis, and the integration of the engine and transaxle as chassis components. Lotus was also among the pioneers in Formula 1 in adding wings and shaping the undersurface of the car to create downforce, as well as the first to move radiators to the sides in the car to aid in aerodynamic performance, and inventing active suspension."
From Wikipedia entry on Lotus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Cars
Links
2008 Exige S 240: concept carz : wikipedia link : Edmunds
2008 USA Exige S 220
2008 UK Exige S 220
Lotus 265E
"The new 265E version is powered by the same-old supercharged Toyota engine as the familiar Exige S, but this time runs on bio-ethanol meaning around 70% less carbon dioxide emissions and 44bhp more go. Sounds virtuous? Well as 0-60mph arrives in 3.88 seconds and the top speed is a hugely illegal 158mph your virtue may be in jeopardy. Your honour."From: Greener Machine blog at www.greenermachine.com
Get more online about the Saving 4 Change:
$"2.80 per gallon currently is a “psychological turning point for consumers,” says David Tompkins, executive director of business solutions at Edmund"From: Edmunds Blog:
Yet I wonder why people have cars if they all have to scrape to fill the gastank? Next: Price tag of the Exige...
Lotus Sport Exige (243 HP): 15 in production at appx. $80,000.00 USD
About Lotus
The Company (Group Lotus) also acts as an engineering consultancy, providing engineering development - particularly of suspension - for other car manufacturers. The lesser known Powertrain department is responsible for the design and development of the 4 cylinder engine found in many of GM's Vauxhall, Opel, Saab, and possibly some Saturn cars. It should however be noted that the current Lotus Elise and Exige models use the 1.8L VVTL-i I4 from Toyota's late Celica GT-S and the Matrix XRS.
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Cars
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Exige
The Exige 265E is a factory-built Exige S optimized to run on E85, comprised of 85% ethanol. The higher octane of this biofuel allows a higher compression ratio and/or more supercharger boost. Lotus says it has no intention to build the 265E (E for Experimental) as a production car, and that it is simply a biofuels demonstrator. According to Lotus, the Exige 265E model has the following specifications:
Additional Link Credits:
Hemmings Auto Blogs
QV500.com
Porsche Panamera
