nytimes.com — Colin Chapman, the racecar builder and founder of Lotus, followed a straightforward path to high performance: ignore the horsepower wars and focus on keeping weight low. Building a car with an emphasis on austerity and light weight starts a happy chain reaction of performance-enhancing consequences. For instance, the Exige is light — just 2077 lbs.
Dec 20, 2008 View in Crawl 4
farfromhereDec 20, 2008
Why can't you love both?
nosecohnDec 21, 2008
I'd love to have one of those. I've always liked small, nimble sports cars. But I've got to wonder one thing...With the state of camera and display technology these days, why even bother putting the glass on the back of that thing? There's barely any visibility at all, and none in the center. Lotus is all about cutting down the weight, and glass is heavy. A tiny camera or two tied to a little display where the rear view mirror is usually mounted would be lighter and safer.
firesightsDec 21, 2008
I'm just guessing here, but I would assume that there would be some sort of legal difficulty with a car not having rear visibility. Imagine if the camera malfunctioned while you were zooming down the autobahn? You suddenly are extremely limited in your ability to see anything behind you. While it's true that the rear visibility isn't good, or even average, at least it's something. Being able to barely see the bumper of what's behind you is a vast improvement over complete blindness.But yes, a camera or two would do wonders for this car, I think. Of course, if you buy an Elise with luxury-class drivability in mind, you're crazy.
mister2Dec 21, 2008
Damn straight they need to bring back cheap MR vehicles. It's not like the drivetrain has to be any different from the oh-so-popular FF setup./AW11 FTW.
equinox1Dec 22, 2008
I've always loved the look of these cars and they're not that expensive either.