Did you see it at the show ?
At the factory; they had one fully built bar the top of the rear wing and another sat there without the clams on. Without the clams it’s a beast, the rear tyres are huge. I asked about the inevitable higher power / cup version release in a year’s time and the guy i spoke to said ‘i asked the engineer about that and he reckoned this was about the limit of the chassis’
the fully built car looked orite, i was pretty stoked to see one tho it didn’t blow me away, there’s something not quite right about it. To nitpick - the new grills looked a bit plasticy though they are metal and the dark red colour did the car no favours, the arse of it wasn’t a winner up close because it seemed stupidly wide. Saying that I saw another one from a bit of a distance parked outside on the way home and it looked better so i’ve not completely made my mind up
Whats the chassis look like with the clams off , has it forged wishbones like the Evora .
I know what you mean about the rear , it could be new model syndrome though like when the S2 came out , so it looks chunky and wide in the flesh ?
didn’t notice the wishbones sorry, the evora chassis is a lot more rigid than the s2 so i thought they may have re-engineered the chassis on the new exige, looking at the floor of the s3 chassis it didn’t look any different from the s2 so i’m guessing they only change is lengthening it behind the cockpit. I think the brakes said LOTUS and not AP RACING,
i was surprised at how wide it looked in the flesh, it’s a much bigger change s2-s3 than it was s1-s2, made the s2 look a bit of a go kart
anyway there were some comments earlier in the thread about maybe Lotus won’t hit their target weight and maybe they could change the rear end before launch but tbh it looks like they’re in production now and everything’s set in stone, i think they’ve got 250 orders for year end so they’ll have to crack on with the build. If you’re thinking about buying one i’d reccomend a trip to the factory in a few months so see a load of them in the flesh
I think I will be going to have a drive on the factory track in the V6 later this year . I’m told the chassis is a lot stiffer than even a 211 , it could be dealer speak though .
I can’t see that being anything other than BS mate unless we are talking about the rear subframe, the 211 is the same tub but with higher sill’s.
The stock S2 tub (and this looks the same) had the sill’s cut lower than the S1/211 but reinforced which is supposed to make it as rigid as (but certainly no more rigid than) the S1/211 tub.
The S3 (are we calling it that now?) looks to have the same tub with the same low sill’s as the S2 but using a new longer rear subframe. The subframe is the only part I can think they could of made stiffer as they do sell the shear panel for the 211/s2 exige.