The new Lotus Exige Sport 380 boasts a phenomenal power to weight ratio and has been built with one thing in mind -- to give supercars a genuine run for their money.
Following hot on the heels of the Evora Sport 410 and the Elise Cup 250 Edition, comes yet another lightweight, superlative-spouting sportscar from the eccentric British brand.
And like its forebears, this model has been put on a serious diet in order to purge it of absolutely any excess weight that could in any way, shape or form threaten its performance.
It now tips the scales at 1,066kg and when that lightness is combined with a 3.5-liter V6 engine that itself has been tweaked thanks to new supercharger pulleys, the result is 375hp or 352hp per tonne, just 23hp shy of the magical one-to-one ratio.
Still, it's enough to send the car from 0-100km/h in 3.7 seconds and onto a top speed of 178mph. And, because it's a Lotus, it should be just as easy to hit that top speed in a bend as on the straight.
"We've saved something special for our last new car of 2016," said Jean-Marc Gales, CEO of Group Lotus plc. "The cut in weight is nothing short of drastic and, combined with the hike in power and its enhanced agility, we've created something exceptional -- far greater than the sum of its parts."
As impressive a package as the new Exige will sound, especially to serious drivers that want an everyday supercar experience, from the outside at least, the model is starting to look a little old (as is the lighter, less powerful but more popular Elise).
But here too there is good news. After a decade of struggling to make ends meet, Lotus is firmly back in the black. This massive turnaround has been achieved in no small part by its engineers' ingenuity -- and it also means Lotus is back in a position to start heavily investing in developing new models.
An all-new version of the compact Elise sportscar is expected in 2020 and that will be followed by an equally new Exige.
But in the meantime, the company is going to continue improving on its current range of cars in terms of handling, weight and performance.
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