Lotus For Under $30k??? on 2040-cars

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Lotus offers Exige S Roadster for sale, but not in North America

The first thing you need to know is that this is the Lotus Exige S Roadster, unchanged from the Exige S even in price and officially the fastest convertible Lotus has ever made. The second thing you need to know is that if you live in the US, you won't be getting this car.
Now that that's out of the way, the lack of a roof, rear wing and front splitter help make it 22 pounds lighter than the coupe, coming in a 2,565 pounds, and the supercharged 3.5-liter V6 in this topless blossom discharges 345 horsepower and 295 pound-feet of torque. For historical comparison with a non-convertible, those numbers nearly match the 2004 Lotus Esprit V8 Final Run edition - which had twin Garrett turbochargers. Yet the Exige S gets from a stoplight to 60 miles per hour in 3.8 seconds, nearly a full second quicker than that Esprit. Fair play, though, the Esprit did weigh 3,040 pounds.
It will be fitted with a six-speed manual only, and cost 52,900 pounds ($79,667 US), 55,378 euros ($71,404 US) or 8,500,000 yen ($82,078 US), depending on where you live. Here in the US we'll be sticking with the track-only Exige V6 Cup and Cup R models. The press release below offers more on the fine points.

Lotus Evora GX to race in U.S. Grand-Am series

The Lotus Evora has taken many forms as a race car over the past few years, starting in 2009 with the Type 124 Endurance Racer built for the FIA GT. Since then, Lotus has developed a GT4 Cup version designed for a one-make series, the Evora GTE that currently competes in the GT class of the ALMS and the recently introduced Evora GTC.
Now, Lotus has released the Evora GX, a variation of the GTC tweaked to specifically meet the requirements of Grand-Am's new GX class that will launch at the start of the 2013 race season. While the two cars are very similar, using the same lightweight carbon fiber and plexiglass bodywork, the GX version gets a thicker U.S.-spec roll cage, a revised front splitter and bumper, a standard Grand-Am rear wing, yellow headlights and a new fuel filler system. ABS and traction control have also been removed per Grand-Am regulations.
Pricing for the Evora GX is listed at $335,000 with each one built to order, and one customer has already taken the plunge. McMahon Raceworks has placed an order and should have the car on the starting grid at the first race next year.

Lotus C-01 motorcycle rumored to get 200-hp V-twin engine

Back in June, Lotus announced it was getting into the motorcycle business. Or, we should say, Kodewa and the Holzer Group are getting into the motorcycle business, and have acquired the rights to use the Lotus name. One way or another, we're now receiving word on some of the specs we can expect from the prototype dubbed C-01.
The Lotus motorcycle is being designed by Daniel Simon, the automotive futurist who has penned, among other things, the light-cycles for Tron: Legacy and the livery on the LMP2 racer Kodewa also fields under the Lotus name. So you know it's going to look pretty awesome, but what will make it go?
According to Visor Down, the C-01 is being tested with a V-twin engine sourced from an undisclosed supplier that produces 170 horsepower in stock trim but has been tuned to produce nearly 200 hp in Lotus trim. A pair of prototypes - one with carbon-fiber bodywork and one without - have already undergone several thousand kilometers of testing, and are said to be handling "very well."