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Lotus Exige Gains Weight With Evora V-6, But By How Much?

 
2 630 views Jun 1, 2010

2010 Lotus Exige Scura

2010 Lotus Exige Scura

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 If there’s one good thing about Lotus, is that they don’t screw around with company founder Colin Chapman’s philosophy of “to add speed, add lightness.” The Lotus Exige and Elise are two of the lightest, brand-new production cars out there by squeaking just over 2000 pounds. Their latest offering, the Evora, around 1000 pounds over the smaller offerings, is still under 3,500 pound “lightweight” limit of today’s automobiles.

But now with a rearrangement of Lotus’s executives, they seem to be throwing Chapman’s ideas out the door.

British automobile publication, Autocar, has spotted Exige test vehicles running around with some wide fender flares and an exhaust note similar to the Evora’s Toyota-sourced V-6 Engine. That means more power for the little roadster, gaining 276 horsepower and 258 ft lbs of torque. The current supercharged Toyota 2ZZ-GE engine is making 19 less horsepower and 84 ft lbs less when it comes to torque. For some spy-shots, check out our sister-site, MotorAuthority.

While this 3.5L V-6 produces more power overall, what about the all important weight savings that Lotus is known for? The new engine weighs, sans transmission and fluids, in at 359 pounds. The 2ZZ-GE, minus fluids, weighs 253 pounds, but adding a supercharger and intercooler will most definitely narrows the engine-weight gap.

However, engines aren’t the only part of the weight problem. Stuffing the engine into the Exige seems to have increased the wheelbase length, which will definitely adds more weight. Dealing with more torque means the rest of the drive train needs to be beefed up too.  The transmission in the Evora made for a Toyota diesel and diesel transmissions are normally built for strength, could increase the overall weight overall. Even axle-shafts could increase weight.

Lotus obviously knows what it’s doing, and all of the cars they build are top notch handlers. But by adding more weight to the Lotus Exige, despite all of the tweaks, might just dilute characteristics to one of the best driving cars currently in production.

Colin Chapman once said, “Adding power makes you faster on the straights, while subtracting weight makes you faster everywhere.”

This V-6 Exige is embracing the former, and forgets the latter all together.

[Source: Autocar]





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Comments (2)

  1. By Helpless Posted: 6/1/2010 12:30pm PDT

    My bet is that it's a mule for something entirely different. Every other manufacturer is feverishly working to "lightweight" however they can. This seems odd for Lotus.
     
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  2. By ronald Posted: 6/1/2010 9:19pm PDT

    Definitely breaks from the Lotus formula here. But hey, almost supercar performance if true, right?
     
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