Models - Exige V6
Pre-launch
A V6 engined version of the Exige had been rumored for many years, even back before the introduction of the Evora, but as rumors built through 20111, with prototypes being spotted both with modified S2 Exige style bodywork and camouflaged paintwork at the Nurburgring - with camouflaged cars seen lacking the Exiges traditional roof scoop and, in some cases, the rear wing.
The car finally broke cover at the Frankfurt Motor Show2 on September 13th with Lotus Advisory Board member Bob Lutz unveiling the Exige S road and Exige R-GT rally cars.
The launch however was only the beginning of the Exige S's protracted path towards customer deliveries.
At the Frankfurt Motor Show initial deliveries were cited for January 20123, but the company was unable to provide official performance, weight or emission figures for the car, instead simply giving estimated 0-60mph, 0-100mph and weight figures of 3.8s, 7.9s and 1080kg respectively as the car was still waiting to undergo the type approval process.
After the Frankfurt launch the car was again seen testing at the Nurburgring4, along with a test car spotted in Holland5 along with the MY12 Elise S and a dealer preview even at JCT600 in November6.
A number of dealership demo days were scheduled for December7, with the blue 'Ride and Handling' prototype set to be driven between dealership, however the cars engine was damaged during filming at the companies Hethel test track with Bruno Senna driving the car. Rumors say that Senna selected the wrong gear on a downshift and over-revved the engine, however Lotus never commented on the cause of the damage.
In its place the non-running Frankfurt show car was trailered between the preview days, however the first 3 events had to be cancelled due to the short notice and distances involved. A gallery of photos from the preview days and first impressions on it can be found on the main SELOC website.
Official performance figures8 and initial brochures9 were finally published in January 2012, however the cars 0-100mph and weight figures had increased to 8.5s and 1176kg and customer cars were still nowhere to be seen and delivery dates being pushed out.
In February 2012 Lotus teased a new convertible model at the Geneva motor show, and while many predicted a convertible Evora10 it was instead the Exige Roadster11 which was shown - explaining the spoiler-less Exige seen testing before the cars launch.
Press reviews finally came out on April 25th12, with the reviews raving about the cars performance, handling and new Race Mode, but some bemoaning the cramped interior dimensions inherent of the Elise chassis. The take-over of Proton by DRB-Hicom13 however led to a halt in funding, a shutdown of the factory production lines and further delays for deliveries to September 201214.
Potential customers for the car finally got a chance to drive it during a series of dealer demo days15 in May, and you can read about our test drive.
The first line built Exige S came off the production line on July 26th16, however further checks and quality improvements meant that at the time of writing customer cars were still pending.
