Sunday, September 23, 2012

Lotus Exige S V6

The power of three...what could possibly be? I'm not sure if we do live in the year of the slow invasion but anyway, that would be too wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey spacey-wasey to talk about that later so, for a three's a crowd, we found one that is worth THE POWER OF THREE...

2012 Lotus Exige S

Some people thought that the Lotus Exige is probably a hardtop hardcore version of the Lotus Elise but for this one, NOT ANYMORE IT ISN'T!

Welcome everybody to the all new Lotus Exige S, the hardcore hardtop Lotus now made even better and for starters, the Toyota engine that used to power the old Celica was been thrown away and replaced with the supercharged 3.5L V6 Toyota engine first applied on the Lotus Evora S. So then, what you're looking up here is a lightweight V6 rage racer. It does 0-100kph at around 3.8 seconds and flatout, it can crack it up to 271kph, about 6kph less than the Lotus Evora S.

Yes, I may want to call it a "rage racer" because look at it, from every angle, this new Exige S looks absolutely enraging. Even though it looks enraging, it's about as elegant as Takane Shijou and for the fun of it, this is about as real as the fictitious Fatalita. Look at the bodywork. If you manage to put some Fatalita livery on it, this is just astonishing and truly an envy of your crowd.

Of course, with all that beauty of a Ridge Racer do come with a price. Because the Exige is all about being a serious lightweight car with a Japanese V6 engine on it, the interior is all about being race-focused and what I expect here is the speedometer. It looks kinda like the one from the Evora. Sure it has an audio but I don't care about it. I don't care about the racer-focused interior. What matters here is the Exige S V6's elegance. Think of it as...Takane Shijou in Christie Monteiro's outfit. Here we go...

When I said Takane Shijou in Christie Monteiro's costume, I really do mean it because the handling is just fantastic for a car that weighs about two tons, about as similar as the Lotus Elise. It's not as mild as a luxury car and it's not as dynamic as an American muscle car. The handling is well balanced and easy to drive because of its lightweight body. Couple that with the 6-speed close ratio manual transmission and this car is a bit more fun. This car is not made for the noobs everywhere because this car's a serious track-day racer, doing the capoeira in every single corner. It is a good car but what about being an everyday car?

Sadly though, it isn't. Sure, the Exige may be track-ready and road legal but with all that sports suspension mounted on the Exige S V6, I'm sorry to say that you'll be going to have a very uncomfortable feeling. It maybe elegant on the track but on the road, this is a different story because when you use this car while going out on a date, this is a bit more wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey spacey-wasey and your girlfriend might think that you're driving a car that scares her the most. Funny thing is, there's no power steering. That's it.

Despite all that bonkers technology, this is really the Lotus I like. I am gladly want to ditch the Evora S for this because the Evora's too heavy and too complicating because of the monitor that I can't read in the sunshine. This car, it's all about THE POWER OF THREE. That is by being lighter, powerful, and aggressive than the old Exige.

Photo: Group Lotus

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