Lithe and light, the Lotus Exige Cup 260 skims over Zolder
By Straight-Six, published on 28 September 2010
“To add speed, add lightness.”
With our foot straight down on the loud pedal inside a jet black Lotus Exige Cup 260 attacking Belgium’s Zolder race track, the words of the great Sir Colin Chapman who founded Lotus aren’t just ringing in our ears; no, they’re quite literally climbing up our backside and into the pit of our stomach. And there they stay during the next couple of hours as we fight off the attacks of Donkervoorts, Porsches and various other racing flotsam and jetsam. And while sometimes we win and sometimes we lose, we never fail to feel utterly at one with this most focussed of beasts and more alive than in almost any other car we’ve had the pleasure of driving.
But wait! We just blew our load all over you, dear reader, and didn’t even have the courtesy to put on the music and dim the lights beforehand. Rushed and inappropriate, let’s rewind for a mo.
We have a friend. A plump, jovial, easy-living Aussie friend who loves his gadgets, his two kids and wife and Lotus. He really loves Lotus, folks, as he’s now on his third and has never come close to giving up despite the numerous technical and mechanical setbacks and failures. He keeps buying them before goading Straight-Six to bring his paunchy M3 to tracks like Spa Francorchamps and Zolder for a circuit battle that usually sees him win, despite his rather lesser driving skills and heavy mid-section.
The really great thing about our hobbit-like friend is his astounding generosity. We say this with absolute certainty and authority as it was he who allowed Straight-Six to clamber into the lithe little terror that is the Lotus Exige Cup 260. And one doesn’t hand over the keys to a €75,000 car easily in this day and age of machismo and crap driving abetted by electronic aids.
Weighing in at slightly less than 900kg and possessing some 260 supercharged-horsepower, the Cup 260 is a race-homologated special. It isn’t like the standard Exige is a softy, but the Cup is for the serious folks who don’t care for creature-comforts and are thoroughly intent on decimating the competition. Killing them before they go to work on ‘em.
So, you’ll never find a greater contrast than between our easy-going Aussie chum and the mini Group C racer that is his ride. And what a ride it is. There is simply no flab or delay anywhere in the Cup 260. It has no power-steering, so nothing corrupts what the tires are telling the nerve endings in your fingers. The AP Racing brakes tirelessly bring the ride to a halt when you need them to, while the engine is, well, a loud supercharged whining ‘ol girl. Not unpleasant, but nothing to write home about. It’s the way it slingshots the Cup 260 down the track and around the corners that never fails to bring a smile to your face and pre-vomit stare from your passengers. We all have a hard time believing it can do what it does.
While the handful of laps were not quite enough for Straight-Six to really get into the flow of the track and the car, something happened out there at Zolder under the bright blue sky. Greatness was tasted, consumed and recognised. It’s much as we’d imagine your first hit of crack to be like: pure, mind-blowing, intoxicating and totally addictive. And you simply crave more. So much more.
We go back and forth over the cars we actually intend to buy and the ones we’d really like to buy but don’t have a hope in hell of ever coming close to. The Lotus Exige Cup 260 straddles the middle ground between these two places. You just cant get this kind of performance for this price. It’s a supercar-killer wrapped in lightness that floats like a butterfly and stings like one seriously pissed-off bee. True, it has its limits, particularly on longer and faster tracks like the Ring, and the build quality is functional and very, very sparse. But hit a back-road in an Exige and you won’t care what lies above 200 kph, where the high-horsepower monsters munch. The drive is the only thing that matters.
You need to learn how to drive a Lotus. They don’t do anything for you you don’t tell them too. And that’s the kind of Prodigal sports car that stands head and shoulders above the rest.
P.S. Straight-Six was so busy hard-wiring himself into the Exige he didn’t get a chance to film his own laps. But some rather more sedate and fearful driver drove at Zolder in another Exige Cup 260 earlier this year. Vid below so you can, well, get an idea..:)
Lithe and light, the Lotus Exige Cup 260 skims over Zolder
“To add speed, add lightness.” With our foot straight down on the loud pedal inside a jet black Lotus Exige Cup 260 attacking Belgium’s Zolder race track, the words of the great Sir Colin Chapman who founded Lotus aren’t just ringing in our ears; no, they’re quite literally climbing up our backside and into the [...]
8 Responses to “Lithe and light, the Lotus Exige Cup 260 skims over Zolder”
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Straight-Six
28 September 2010
Hey there,
According to Sport Auto, the Lotus Exige Cup 260 achieves a lap time of just under 8 minutes at the Nordschleife.
Not bad for a Norfolk lightweight, eh?
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Thank You answering to me. Not at all bad time!!! That was interesting to me, because last summer I visited there. I could not drive because the track was closed due to competition of previous day.
My car photos here:
http://sartenada.wordpress.com/category/cars/
Happy driving!
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Straight-Six
28 September 2010
Fantastic pics! Thanks for sharing them with us all.
We should try and get together the next time I’m in Helsinki, as my darling wife hails from there…:)
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underthedial
29 September 2010
A great post about one of my all-time favorite cars. If only it was made by Germans . . . but then it wouldn’t be a Lotus.
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Straight-Six
29 September 2010
Thanks, Ian, and too true. Then again, look what happened when VW bought Lamorghini.
Lotus has had a huge management shake-up of late and aims to increase its production from 2,500 cars/year to around 8,000 units. They won’t be able to expand their range and increase volume by a factor of 3 unless they figure out how to make their cars deliver not just the one-shot crack hit, but the long-term brown sugar high…
Really looking forward to this, as I’m very close to taking the decision to save up for an Exige S. Very close.
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You used a video of my first drive on a circuit ever, some months ago. Pls find a more actual vid of yesterday, @Zolder:-
Straight-Six
18 October 2010
Jokke,
Thanks for stopping by and updating us! A pleasure to see you attacking the circuit evermore vigorously in a car I covet so very much…
You lucky man, you…:)
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sartenada
28 September 2010
Hi.
I have here a list of fast car, where is Yours on this list?
http://www.fastestlaps.com/track2.html