2001 Lotus Exige 177 review from UK and Ireland

1. Air-con snuffed it twice, leaked its gas. Who cares!

2. Leaking crank main oil seal. Easy fix with head breather kit.

3. Wheel bearing front right gone at 15,000 miles. French made part!

4. Eats, gobbles, devourers very expensive Yokohama tyres.

“Exige” taken from the French word exiger (I think) which means demanding and o boy if a car was ever aptly named!

Race car

Do not make any mistake this is nothing less than a very moderately de-tuned version of Lotus’s Motor Sport Elise with an MOT, tax and a number plate. You need to take note of the pros and cons of this car. You need to be totally realistic when even thinking of owning this stunning road/track race car. This is no G.T, it’s full on race spec. don’t moan when you find there’s no boot or door handles, or it’s a bit jumpy in traffic.

The engine

For a start it is an incredibly highly tuned normally aspirated version of the 1.8L Rover K series engine, developing a minimum of 177BHP, which is about as much as a Rover 2.5L KV6 engine. The K series engine is, what ever anybody says, is incredibly advanced. It is and always has been the lightest engine in its class, with its all alloy block and head coupled with the unique stressed layered construction. It is only now companies like Honda are copying the way the K series is made. On the minus side, the K has always been dogged by head gasket problems. Do not let this put you off as I have had no problems at all so far with that… touch wood!

The body

The body of the car is designed to create real down force at high speed, but because of this the front of the car has to be and is incredibly close to the ground. Speed bumps, petrol station forecourt entrances etc can be a nightmare to negotiate. The glass body is very durable, much more so than you might imagine. I have been overtaking cars and had a Ford Focus slam into the left side of the Exige and it took a chunk of my glass body about an inch in size and put two stress cracks in the glass, the Ford needed a new front wing and door. Another upside of the Exige body is the design; women will want your babes! It is a fact, can’t put it any simpler.

The chassis

Richard Rackham’s opus-magnum! There’s Brunel and then there’s Rackham, total genius. The alloy chassis only weighs 69 Kg and a torsion stiffness of 10,000 lb ft! It’s so strong, in 30MPH crash testing into a steel wall, after the test you could have driven the car home albeit for taping the fragmented nose cone up.

I can’t very easily describe how good this car is. I have in my time owned some good cars, Audi “UR” quattro turbo, Impreza T2000, all of which where superb. None of them come any where near to the Exige. It is the best car ever made bar none! It is sheer joy! Every time you look at it you smile, its outrageous, huge curves, air intakes, scoops, wings, diffusers, bulges, splitter, wing vents, roof intake, you name it, it has it. The steering is direct and razor sharp. Throttle response low down in the rev range is flat, but that’s only to be expected due to the cams its running, 1.8L N/A 177BHP = HOT CAMS! When you get it above 4 grand it sounds beautiful, just like a full on B.T.C.C. motor. Above 6 to 8 grand she completely takes off warp speed. Surprisingly the car is quite comfortable, even on long journeys if a little loud. The suspension is relatively soft and compliant, if you put it in context with some of its rivals. This is ultimately where Lotus weave there magic. It goes with out saying that this car grips the black stuff like the proverbial limpet.