Americans will find the all-new Lotus Exige Race 380 available this spring, but like all the other track-ready Lotus hardtops we’ve told you about, it can’t be registered for use on public roads.
Lotus keeps upping the power (and price) on its limited series of Exige and Elise Cup cars, which by all accounts haven’t changed much in 17 years. But despite its age, the Toyota-sourced supercharged 3.5-liter V-6, and the inability to meet U.S. federal crash standards, Lotus can still cobble together delightful lightweight track toys. So, as you might guess, the Exige Race 380 is fun.
At $145,000 before options and shipping, it’s also the most affordable mid-engined factory race car with doors and a windshield, at least by Lotus’s reckoning. Allowing for all the qualifiers (factory race car, mid-engine, doors, windshield, etc.), the most comparable contender appears to be the Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport that sells for $165,000. With Lotus claiming a zero-to-60-mph time of 3.2 seconds, performance?if not build quality?should be similar to the German car’s. On a tight course with few straights, you’d need a hero and a mid-engine racer selling for more than double the price?a Ferrari 488GT3 or a Lamborghini Huracán Super Trofeo?to truly run and hide from this Lotus. Or, if you think windscreens and doors and such are just superfluous, you could look into an Ariel Atom. Well, you can actually look right through an Ariel Atom, but we digre...