Lotus has a new CEO, and this car is his brainchild. The good news is that it's kept everything we loved about the British brand and distilled it to the most track-focused essence. The 3-Eleven is what Lotus describes as its new generation of sportscar, powered by a 450 bhp engine and weighing under 900 kilograms.
The new head of Lotus, Jean-Marc Gales, described the 3-Eleven as "an uncompromised manifestation of the Lotus idiom” on the sidelines of the Goodwood Festival of Speed today. The car will be sold in both road and race forms, with prices going from £82,000 to £115,200.
The engine, as you might have guessed already, is the same Toyota-sourced 3.5-liter V6 with a supercharger as on the Evora 400. However, output has been increased to 450bhp at 7,000 rpm and 450 Nm (332 lb-ft) from 3,500 rpm.
The Race version will be sold with a six-speed sequential gearbox while the street car will have a six-speed manual gearbox and a Torsen LSD. Because Lotus prides itself on lightness, these machines manage to do more with less, so the power/weight balance is about the same as on a supercar.
The 3-Eleven Race is said to be able to reach 60 mph (96 km/h) in less than 3 seconds, which means it can probably sprint as fast as a LaFerrari or McLaren P1. Top speed isn't as impressive, but we can't complain about a 174 mph (280 km/h) car that lapped Lotus' Hethel circuit in just 1 minute 22 seconds, 10s faster than the next quickest car.
Pretty soon, the company plans to unleash its rabid raccoon onto the Nurburgring track. Gales expressed confidence that the 3-Eleven will post a lap time similar to the sub-7 minutes achieved by the Porsche 918 Spyder.
Sure, not everybody wants an Ariel Atom with fenders, but just look green racecar and tell us you don't want one in your ideal 100-car collection.
Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida. Full profile
Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?
Google News