Hi all, some of you might have seen this on another forum by Fonzey suggested it was worth posting on here as there might be some interested folks. Not posted on here for a while, so apologies if it seems I’m just jumping in!\
Anyway this will be in catch up, so I’ll try to avoid too much waffling, but its hard for me. Bit of background long time Exige/Elise owner: Elise Sport160, Exige S1 x2, Exige S2 x 2 and an Exige Sport 350 - there was a bit of gap between the S1’s/S2’s and the S3. I built the S3 into exactly what I wanted (thread here: XXX)and for whatever reason I never really gelled with it, I loved it and it was a great car - but for me an Exige needs a delicacy about it, and the extra weight of the v6 just lost me that connection. But this isn’t an s3 vs s2 debate so I won’t dwell on it too long! At the end of lockdown a chance to sell came up to a very enthusiastic owner and it seemed like the right time, deal was done and off she went
After lots of debate of what next car, I couldn’t bring myself to get into supercar levels (too fast for road etc) nor Atom type cars (see them as motorbikes really). what I knew I wanted again was a properly sorted S2 Exige. I was going to build one up exactly how I wanted, but I was essentially building a Cup car, and then a MY10 Cup260 came up!
For those that don’t know the Cup260 was a pretty special model with some of the following features:
Carbon Roof
Carbon tailgate
Carbon access panels
Carbon parts in rear clam
Carbon side ducts
Carbon splitter
Carbon spoiler
Carbon Dash/Vents/Side sills
Carbon Seats
Forged wheels (lightest at the time)
Lightweight subframe
Lightweight flywheel, uprated clutch
Lightweight bulkhead (no window)
Lightweight supercharger pipes
Accusump
Additional sheer panel to increase lateral stiffness
Ohlins 2 way remote reservoir dampers
Ap 4 pots
+lots of other bits
Found it looking like this:
Pretty good for a 10 year old car, felt pretty special but still the S2 that I remembered. I had seen several people refer to the car in question as ‘mint’, ‘immaculate’ etc so went with high hopes - it was not beaten up at all, but plenty of stonechips, suspension needed a refurb (but pickup points all good just normal lotus suspension). Eventually we came to a deal with me knowing I would be essentially taking on a project. The car was loved and it was used, it was not kept in a bubble but I know that I want my cars mint so pretending that I wouldn’t go down that route
For a cup it’s a slight more road spec, so doesn’t have external cut-offs, or A-frame but does have Airbags and a Radio. Apparently if you wanted the radio you had to have the airbags at the time (loom change) and you lost the external cut-offs. They also deleted the A-frame as you can’t fit the cage that attaches to it with the airbags.
As said deal agreed and after checking for really serious damage I was on my way, ready for a deep clean and see where we were
Downsides were mainly cosmetic so in a heart over head decision I went for it….
Drive home was good, exactly how I expected it to feel (despite the v6 only being a few inches bigger, the S2 felt tiny by comparison and just right 
)
It feel so light compared to the 350, despite being only a few inches smaller it felt much smaller - back to the B-road blaster that I missed
Engine felt good, pretty much noise free (apart from a badly adjust roof banging like hell)
Happy days
A proper clean (you can’t not clean a new car):
Truly deserving of a ‘special edition’ status. Looking forward to seeing it in the flesh.
. It looks like you’ve ticked off most of your list, looking forward to the next instalment 
