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On the Limit in the Lotus Track Car That's Coming to the U.S.
By Alistair Weaver, Contributor Email
Date posted: 07-19-2007
The cockpit of the 2008 Lotus 2-Eleven is small and spartan. There's no trim to speak of, just a tiny leather-rimmed steering wheel, some aluminum pedals and a stubby shift lever. Snug down the strap of your helmet, tighten the belts of your racing harness and reach for the starter button.
The Lotus 2-Eleven starts instantly and settles into a jaunty mechanical thrum. Select 1st gear, ease out the clutch and slip quietly onto the circuit at Lotus headquarters in Hethel, England. It was here that Colin Chapman rolled out the Formula 1 cars that made Lotus the most innovative automotive brand in the world during a golden era between 1967 and 1978. But there's no time to think about that now, because the 2008 Lotus 2-Eleven is quick — savagely quick.
It is essentially a stripped-down roofless Lotus Elise with a highly tuned version of the Lotus Exige S's supercharged Toyota inline-4. It's the most extreme Lotus in a generation, and also the fastest. And it's also street-legal and coming to the U.S.
Lotus Circuit Car Concept
Lotus has a history of building track cars based on its Lotus Elise, which has been in production since September 1996. Back in 2000, Lotus introduced the 340R, a bizarre, buglike creation that looked like it had escaped from a sci-fi movie. "I'm going to get into trouble for saying this, but the 340R was a designer's vision," says Nick Adams. "The 2-Eleven is an engineer's response to the 340R." Adams is the engineering manager at Lotus Sport, the skunkworks that operates the tuning and motorsport activities at Lotus.
Although the 2-Eleven derives its lineage from the 340R, it began life as the Lotus Circuit Car concept, which was built in 2005 to celebrate the centenary of the well-known Shelsey Walsh hill climb. Public reaction was so strong that Lotus decided to put the car into production. The track-day market is booming across the world, yet the aspirations Lotus has for the 2-Eleven are modest, and Adams expects to build no more than 300 cars over the next three years. Its designation as the Lotus 2-Eleven recalls the lightweight, front-engine Lotus Eleven, a racing car built from 1956-'58 at the original Lotus headquarters at Cheshunt.
All the Best Bits
This car is really a hybrid of several Lotus models. The cockpit is pinched from the original Elise Series 1, which had higher sills than the second-generation car. The rear end comes from the Series 2 so it can accommodate the supercharged 1.8-liter Toyota engine that is shared with the Exige Cup 255 racing cars.
A 218-horsepower version of this engine can be found in the Exige S, but once the supercharged engine is fitted with a larger intercooler and the Lotus T4e engine control module, it develops 252 hp at 8,000 rpm and 179 pound-feet of torque at 7,000 rpm, an improvement of 16 percent and 26 percent, respectively.
Just like the Elise, the suspension features double wishbones at every corner, but the ride height has been dramatically lowered by 3.9 inches at the front of the car and 4.3 inches at the rear. There are two-way adjustable dampers from Ă–hlins and an adjustable front antiroll bar from Lotus Sport. A limited-slip differential is an option, but the Lotus engineers claim it undermines the feel of the steering.
Simplicity Itself
The 2-Eleven has no doors, and it requires the flexibility and dexterity of a gymnast to step over the side of the car and into the cockpit. Naturally there's no roof, although Lotus is working on a tonneau cover. The cabin has zero frills — not even any storage space — but the driving position is excellent and the ProBax seats are more comfortable than they look.
Built from fiberglass, the 2-Eleven's body panels are bolted rather than bonded to the chassis, so they can easily be replaced if your bravado writes a check your talent can't cash. The carbon-fiber rear wing is standard, and when it's trimmed for street use, it generates 139 pounds of downforce at 100 mph. The wing on the track-only version is adjustable and generates as much as 183 pounds of downforce.
The net product of this simplicity is, of course, light weight. In track spec, the 2-Eleven weighs just 1,543 pounds with a full tank of fuel. It weighs only 96 pounds more with street equipment, and that's 422 pounds less than the Exige S.
At the Limit
As we speed around the Lotus test loop at Hethel, we feel the same delicacy of touch and rapidity of response that characterize the Elise, but now the focus is sharper. The unassisted yet light-effort steering is talkative, and the tiny leather-rim steering wheel communicates the minutiae of surface changes and cornering grip — an overall quality that Lotus likes to call "think steer." The throttle response is impressive for a supercharged engine, and the power delivery is surprisingly flexible.
The 2-Eleven is reassuringly predictable at high speed. Adams is quick to point out that this is a track car and not a racecar, so it's been built to be safe and predictable. At first it feels almost too soft on the track, but you soon learn to enjoy this measure of compliance. Exceed the limit of tire grip and the 2-Eleven mimics an Elise by understeering gently. Lift off the throttle and the rear of the car steps out a few degrees, balancing the cornering attitude.
With time, you can begin to explore the car's limits. By abruptly lifting off the throttle midcorner and then immediately getting back on the gas, it's possible to provoke a sizable dollop of oversteer. The 2-Eleven will also go sideways under power, but only with severe provocation. The Yokohama Advan AO48 tires look like hand-cut slicks, yet the soft rubber compound preserves plenty of grip even in damp conditions, so only in really wet conditions should you have cause to worry.
A stability control system is standard on the 2-Eleven. Developed for the racing-spec Exige, it works by retarding engine power, not by applying the brakes. It's meant to be a true driving aid, and there are 18 different settings that can be selected using a rotary knob in the cockpit. At its most extreme setting, the stability control permits 7 degrees of slip angle by the rear tires (well beyond the point where tires develop peak cornering grip), although you still can turn off the system completely. It's an impressive system and a genuinely useful aid in a car as rapid as this.
Lotus reckons that the 2-Eleven will get to 60 mph in 3.8 seconds, reach 100 mph in 8.9 seconds and make the quarter-mile in 12.2 seconds. The car is geared for a top speed of 150 mph. Even by racecar standards, the 2-Eleven is brutally rapid and begs to be revved all the way to the rev limiter at 8,500 rpm.
The brakes are some of the best we've experienced on a road car. Even after several hard laps, they stop the Lotus with reassuring, fade-free authority.
The Price of Genius
Such dynamic genius does not come cheap. The road-specification version of the 2008 Lotus 2-Eleven is likely to cost as much as $70,000 when it arrives in the U.S. later this year. This makes it comparable with other British-built track specials like the Caterham 7 and Ariel Atom.
The 2008 Lotus 2-Eleven rewards driving skill like few other automobiles. This is, quite simply, one of the most accomplished cars we've ever driven. It is also one of the purest expressions of the Lotus idea ever built — a lightweight, aerodynamic performance car that maximizes efficiency, not weight or complication.
