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By Jonathan Crouch
Introduction
For enthusiasts, the Lotus Exige is a precision weapon, a car which had bold dynamic claims to make in more powerful V6-engined third generation form. Designed by people who knew how to develop and set up true driving machines, this was a sportscar like no other. But does it make sense as a used buy?
Models
(3.5 turbocharged petrol [S,Cup,Club Racer,350 Sport,380 Sport,410 Sport,430 Cup,390 Sport,420 Sport',430 Cup])
History
Back in 2012, sportscar makers Lotus knew they had to expand their product line for an appeal beyond hard-core enthusiasts. But it was those very people who had built the brand buying models like the Exige.
The Exige in all its forms was a totally focused driving machine that summed up everything this British marque was really about. The kind of car that Lotus founder Colin Chapman used to make. Uncompromising sportscars of course, can take many different forms and back in 2012, Lotus liked to think that it offered a choice to suit the most demanding tastes. The Elise roadster for weekend enthusiasts. The pricier Evora coupe for day-to-day drivers wanting more power and luxury. And this Exige for track tearaways unwilling to compromise or adapt to life on tamer tarmac.
Appropriately, the Exige has racing roots, the original version based on the Sport Elise race car that Lotus produced for a one-make championship series in 1999. Raw and uncompromising with a huge rear wing and up to 190bhp from a lumpy old 1.8-litre MG Rover engine, it sold until 2001 and was brilliant, provided you confined it to a race circuit. The need for both more modern power and a car that would be slightly easier to live with brought us the second generation Exige in 2004, driven by a high-revving 1.8-litre Toyota unit, subsequently supercharged to put out as much as 257bhp. But it was still very much a track car first and foremost.
You could say the same about this third generation version, launched in mid-2012 in coupe and Roadster forms, but that would be telling only part of the story. Powered by a much pokier supercharged V6 engine, it was bigger and heavier than its 'Series 2' predecessor, but crucially also faster and more satisfying. Everything in fact the Exige ever promised to be, offering the fun and potential open-topped thrills of an Elise with the long distance power and luxury of an Evora. A 'Cup' version was launched in 2014, a 'Club Racer' version in 2015, and a '350 Sport' derivative in 2016. Automatic paddleshift transmission was available from 2015. Faster versions followed; the '380 Sport' in 2017 and in 2018 the '410 Sport' and the '430 Cup'. The final production run was based around three 'Final Edition' variants, the '390 Sport', the '420 Sport' and the '430 Cup'. The 'Series 3' model line sold until 2021.
What You Get
You can't double the size of an engine in a car as small and terrier-like as an Exige and expect it not to fundamentally change. Replacing the MK2 model's compact little four cylinder 1.8 with a hulking great 3.5-litre supercharged V6 required of course a bigger engine bay, so a stretch to the back of the car, a longer wheelbase and revised bodywork. The new powerplant also needed a different gearbox and new suspension to carry its weight and transmit its loads through different tyres, wheels and brakes. In other words, though some of the basic underpinnings of this design were carried over from the old 'Series 2' Exige, what we essentially had here was a completely different car.
Whether it was also a better looking one will be a matter of personal preference. Design Director Donato Coco's inspiration apparently came from low, wide Group C racing cars, creating a very different shape that was 255mm longer and 75mm wider than before. As one of our colleagues put it at the time, 'the Exige no longer looks like a pugnacious little terrier that's going to hang off your trouser leg. Instead it's morphed into something a bit more sensual and elegant'. Personally, we preferred the look of the little terrier but this MK3 car was certainly more visually sophisticated, even if it was rather needlessly fussy around the rear.
Getting in and out remains something of a gymnastic feat, thanks to the combination of the high sills and the low roof line which will make the cockpit a tight fit for taller drivers. Should you take exception to this yet still somehow want an Exige, with this MK3 version there was the option of doing away with the roof altogether and opting for a separate Roadster version. Yes, an open-topped Exige. In either of this model's first two generations, such a thing would have been faintly ludicrous as the end result would essentially have been nothing more than an Elise. With this MK3 model though, there was clear justification for a roofless version and the result was very pretty indeed, if simplistic with a manual soft top you've to clip on and off. Mind you, that'll be a small price to pay for getting a more intense Exige experience.
Whichever body style you choose, it won't help if your own body style is somewhat portly, the cabin offering wonderful body-hugging front seats that clamp you into place. Still, once you're installed behind the non-adjustable wheel, it's surprisingly comfortable even on longer trips, provided you don't mind the constant engine drone that'll loudly accompany progress if you get a car whose original owner didn't pay extra for sound insulation, carpets and floor mats.
These items shouldn't have been optional. Nor should rear parking sensors (without which tight spaces are near-impossible to negotiate) and air conditioning to combat the way the cabin heats up from the engine just behind. We also wish Lotus had offered a bespoke luggage set, for the cargo bay out back in this Series 3 model turned out to be even smaller than before at just 98-litres, the problem exacerbated by the fact that there's no significant stowage room inside the cockpit. Still, you didn't expect this to be a practical choice did you? Could it be better finished and more day-to-day useable? Yes. Would we in some small way have been a little disappointed if it had been? Yes. This is a race car at heart and it should feel like one.
What You Pay
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What to Look For
There aren't too many Exige S3s out there to choose from but the ones you do find should be fairly robust. The 3.5-litre V6 turbocharged engine earned its corn in bigger, heavier Toyotas so it's lightly stressed in the Exige. Avoid examples that have seen too many track days, checking tyres and brakes as a matter of course. Lotus hadn't had a lot of experience in constructing classy cabin environments prior to making this car, so the trim can show signs of wear and tear quite quickly but the important bits are sturdy. Cars that have been hard-used may exhibit clutch wear: it's possible to download the number of hard launches the car is done from vehicle software, but you may just want to do your own quick getaway and see if you can detect the unmistakable smell of cremating clutch. Servicing is required every year or 9000 miles, with minor services costing about £500 and major services around £800, the latter required every four years. You should get the geometry of the car checked more frequently than that because even a little like kerbing will be enough to take the edge off this model's sharp handling.
Replacement Parts
(approx based on a 2015 Exige S3 V6 S) Lotus spares are agreeably cheap, as are servicing costs. The key complaint amongst Exige owners regarding replacement parts is the long wait for replacement body panels. Other spares are far more readily available. A replacement clutch kit will cost around £600 but once you've fitted it, you'll probably be looking at more like £2,000 including labour. You'll need to assign a budget for tyres, particularly if you plan on regularly attending track days - as you should with this car. A set of Pirelli P Zero Corsa rubber will cost you about £180 for the fronts and around £200 for the rears. Exige tyres usually wear more on the inside edges but excessive wear on any part of the tyre should hang out a few red flags for you. Thoroughly test the AP 4-pot caliper brakes to make sure there are no signs of graunching. A fresh pair of front discs will cost you just under £500, with pads adding an extra £200 or so to that. A known weak point is the brake pedal switch. That's a fairly easy thing to change but if after replacing it you still have problems then you'll need to change the ABS unit which will cost around £1,000. Suspension dampers cost around £700 each.
On the Road
Before we begin, we must start by declaring a preference - for Lotus and for this one in particular. In an original Exige around the Nurburgring Nordschliefe, we learned in one unforgettable afternoon the basic rudiments of real driving pleasure in a sportscar that was everything most others weren't: raw, focused, dynamic, uncompromising.
To be honest, none of these words accurately convey the sheer adrenaline rush you get on the track or your favorite B-road with an Exige shimmying beneath you and the engine at full chat. It was always addictive - and it still is, despite the very different recipe needed to create this third generation version. One, we have to say, that rather worried us before we drove this car.
You see, what always worked about early versions of this model was the lightweight 'chuckability' on offer, leaving some rivals needing engines twice as powerful just to keep up. The whole concept of a heavier Exige always seemed like a contradiction in terms - but that's just what we got with this MK3 version, the adoption of the supercharged 3.5-litre Toyota V6 from the Evora S the main culprit in adding a hefty 250kgs to the kerb weight.
Mind you, this is still performance motoring stripped down to its barest essentials. All of the high-tech trickery that other sportscar makers use to optimise acceleration times - four wheel drive even a limited slip differential - was discarded here because Lotus thought it wasn't needed, a contention that's hard to argue with when in standard form, this car will demolish the rest to sixty sprint in just 3.8s, make 100mph from rest in less than 9s and top out at 170mph. Power steering didn't even make the spec sheet, so there's nothing to get in the way of the wonderfully connected feeling you have with the road whilst at the perfectly positioned wheel.
Not that technical innovation is totally absent here. Give any car 46% more power and 74% more torque and you need to give it a few extra tools to handle things more easily - namely in this case what Lotus called 'DPM' - 'Dynamic Performance Management'. It's all controlled via a Ferrari-like manettino-style rotary controller on the dash that, via up to four settings, adjusts throttle, engine sound, rev limit, ESP intervention and chassis response to suit the way you want to drive.
'Tour' is where you'll leave it most of the time, not only in day-to-day motoring but even when you're pushing on if there are circumstances where you can't be - or don't want to be - fully committed. Maybe it's lashing down with rain or perhaps your mind's partly elsewhere. Either way, this Exige is primed to make the difference: turn in too early to a corner with too much power for example and barely imperceptible front brake applications bring things back into line without taking away control. Like all the best sportscars, it makes you feel a better driver than you probably are.
At which point, if the road opens up, you might be ready to take things to the next level and try 'Sport' mode with its sharper throttle response, higher rev limit and larger threshold for opposite lock heroics. Best of all though, get this car onto a race track and try the optional 'Race' setting. You might expect this to simply dispense with all the electronics and leave you to tyre-smoke away to your heart's content - but you'd be wrong: that's something the brave or foolhardy can do by simply switching DPM off completely. 'Race' is much cleverer than that, based around a Bosch-engineered black box of tricks that not only provides a 'launch mode' to hurl you away from rest but also somehow instantly 'learns' the grip level of the surface you're driving on, then delivers precisely the right amount of power and wheel slip to suit.
In other words, in this Lotus, all the tools are on hand to create a quite astonishingly fast point-to-point sportscar able to flatter even inexperienced drivers. A machine with astonishing pulling power thanks to 400Nm of torque and an engineering remit as focused as any previous Exige - so bespoke 17-inch front and 18-inch rear wheels and tyres, a wider track, bigger brakes and a freshly added rear anti-roll bar to improve agility enhanced by a 100% improvement in lateral stiffness. All enough, it must be said, to mask the extra weight and keep this car's legendary chuckability intact.
But there's something else as well. Not only was this still the perfect track machine but it was also a car you wouldn't mind driving to the circuit too. Don't get us wrong. We're not going to pretend this Lotus is refined or luxurious because of course it isn't: this is no Porsche Cayman. As before, the six-speed manual gearbox is sticky and awkward, the engine's noisy, the steering's ridiculously heavy at low speeds and both rearward and rear three quarter vision are awful. All of this is as you would expect an Exige to be. What changed with this MK3 version though was the ride quality. Without losing any of its firmness or feedback, there was suspension suppleness that doesn't pummel you in ordinary driving. You feel like you could live with it - maybe even undertake a longer trip or two. It was a better compromise. In a much better car.
Overall
Is the Exige S3 the world's finest all-round road and track car from its era? It certainly lays claim to that title with raw performance, agility and almost unparalleled ride and handling good enough round Lotus's test track to make this MK3 Exige model a full five seconds quicker than its predecessor. Yes, it was that much better. So no, the extra weight and power didn't spoil this Lotus. It's still a true race car for the road, developed by drivers for drivers. Hugely entertaining, richly rewarding and, if you carefully choose your setting on the clever Dynamic Performance Management system, able to take corners better than Pele thanks to a uniquely formidable downforce package that sticks it to the tarmac.
To criticise this car's lack of day-to-day practicality is pointless. That's not its remit and in any case, all likely owners will have other more sensible cars installed in their air conditioned, timber-framed garages. That said, the designers needed to make this an easier car to drive to and from the racetracks it loves most. Good then, that they did that too. An Exige S3 of course won't be for everyone. But for the committed few, it offers a unique ownership proposition. More of a sportscar. More of an experience. More of a Lotus.
