Lotus is celebrating fifty years of being at Hethel and has made a special model that will fit the bill of celebrating this long standing location for the brand. The track at Hethel is one that many have loved driving on and has the bee the testing grounds for Lotus for many years. This special edition model will be one that truly epitomizes Lotus and what they stand for on the market, which is a company that can build some of the most attractive and high performing sports cars for us to love and enjoy in our driving.
This model that will mark the 50th Anniversary will be called the Exige 350 Special Edition which will be a new lightweight model that offers some upgraded performance enhancing features to give us a model that performs even better than the base model. This new model will also have special paint and interior features as part of the standard offerings. With the new features and looks of this special edition Lotus promises this car is truly something exciting to celebrate this anniversary in style while giving us something amazing to look at, but as with most special edition models of vehicles, this one will be made in only a small number.
Starting with what can be enjoyed from under the hood, there will be a 3.50liter supercharged V6 engine that makes 345 horsepower. While that doesn’t sound overly exciting you have to remember that Lotus models are smaller and lighter than most, which means this car can use all of this horsepower the way it’s meant to be enjoyed. With this power to the wheels, the Lotus Special Edition will make the run to sixty mph in only 3.7 seconds while having a top speed of 170 mph. This car is actually 57 pounds lither than the standard Exige Sport 350 and it can make the lap at Hethel in 1:29.8 to be a seriously fast car.
In order to save some weight on this car, Lotus revised the front access panel to be similar in build and style to the one on the Exige Cup 350. They also added carbon fiber sport seats, a set of lightweight forged alloy wheels and a lithium-ion battery that’s lighter than a standard battery for the car. With these weight saving features the Special Edition will only be offered to a select few customers, fifty to be exact, to match the number of years Lotus has been at Hethel.
This car is absolutely the perfect way for Lotus to celebrate its anniversary, but we won’t see any of these models sold in the US. The low number and the fact that Lotus currently has no presence here contribute to this fact. Instead, these fifty Special Edition models will be sold in the UK, Germany and Japan for loyal customers to enjoy. Lotus claims this version of the Exige is the fastest road production version of the car they’ve ever made and they are certainly excited about this model that will help them celebrate.
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