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The Lotus 3-Eleven 430 is the fastest street-legal Lotus built

You're looking at the fastest street-legal Lotus ever built. Weighing in at 2,028 pounds, the new Lotus 3-Eleven 430 can hit 60 mph in just 3.1 seconds and continue all the way to 180 mph. It's a fitting tribute for 40 years of Lotus cars. As expected, the "430" in its name refers to its power output. There's no four-banger screamer in the 3-Eleven 430: The supercharged, Toyota-sourced 3.5-liter, 24-valve V6 produces 430 hp and 324.5 lb-ft. of torque. There's a lightweight carbon-composite body on an extruded-bonded aluminum chassis, and the carbon side panels are partially exposed for that cool carbon look. You also get variable, six-position traction control, with five levels ranging from 1 percent slip to 12 percent slip to off. Lateral acceleration while cornering is a respectable 1.5 g. At the Hethel test track, the new 3-Eleven 430 has reportedly beaten previous Lotus efforts. With a lap time of 1:24, it's 0.8 seconds quicker than an Exige Cup 430, and it also completely obliterates the previous, 2015 3-Eleven by shaving off 2 whole seconds. Only 20 units will be built, so few people will get to experience the 430 at maximum attack. Lotus has priced the 3-Eleven 430 at GBP102,000 on the road in the UK, which corresponds to $142,525. Related Video: Featured Gallery Lotus 3-Eleven 430 Lotus Convertible Performance lotus 3-eleven

Lotus Eletre configurator welcomes virtual tire kickers

The Lotus Eletre configurator is ready to be toyed with. There aren't that many customization options to play with, but the total experience is quite fun. The exterior palette consists of seven colors. The odd bit is that, try what browser we may, we couldn't get the names of those seven colors to appear anywhere. The menu looks like black, green, red, yellow, and three shades of silver, but clicking the latter three reveals what looks like a metallic silver, a flat gray, and a rose-tinted-something. Same with the interior, which comes in green, black, white, or beige. All but black result in a two-tone cabin. Things are much easier when it comes to wheels. The floral petal rims either come in all black or black with polished accents, the center caps are either Lotus yellow or black, and the calipers are either yellow, red, green, black, or charcoal.  For those of you unsure about the Eletre's looks, the well stocked Animations, Beautyshots, and Environments sections could get you on board with the styling — it did for us; a red Eletre under a cosmopolitan setting spoke to us in a way the yellow debut model did not. A couple of notes, though. Choose your colors in one of the Environments; the ambient lighting in the Beautyshots changes the vehicle lighting like in real life, turning the bright yellow calipers into a dusty gray in one instance, for example. The animations that show off features like the aero shutters in the grille and the active rear spoiler need a couple of clicks to perform. And again, just like in real life, the Eletre only does what you tell it; if you leave the hatch up in the Boot animation then click the Spoiler or Front Left Door, the boot stays up. Click to a city environment with the driver's door and hatch open and you'll be crystal clear as to what the Eletre looks at the end of a shopping run, a feature we've never seen in a configurator before. You have your mission and your cautions, now go play. Related video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. 2017 Lotus Evora 400 Review | Autoblog

Lotus Type 66 is the Can-Am race car that never was

Most car reveals for Pebble Beach are all-new luxury and supercars, faithful recreations of classics, or some unique restomods. What Lotus has revealed isn't really any of those. The Type 66, while looking like a reproduction of a classic race car, is actually completely new, since it was never built in the first place. Apparently Lotus was considering entering the Can-Am racing series back in 1970, a time when the company was seriously competitive in Formula 1. A designer by the name of Geoff Ferris was put in charge, and drawings and models were made, but the project, called Type 66, never went any further. Those Type 66 designs survived, and to help celebrate the company's 75th anniversary, Lotus decided to bring the car to life. And the result is not exactly what it would've been built for 1970. The design is very similar, and the red, white and gold paint is what Lotus would've used. However, the body has been formed from carbon fiber (something that was definitely not used) and makes much more downforce thanks to more than 1,000 hours of aero development. Specifically, it can produce 1,764 pounds of downforce at 150 mph, more than the weight of the vehicle. The frame is more traditional, though, being made of extruded and bonded aluminum and aluminum honeycomb panels. The powertrain is a similar blend of vintage and modern. It uses a pushrod V8 of unknown manufacture, but with forged internals as well as modern fuel and engine management. It makes a huge 819 horsepower at 8,800 rpm and 550 pound-feet of torque at 7,400 rpm. It also has functional and classic-looking gleaming intake trumpets sticking out the back. Safety and features that are thoroughly modern are also included in the Type 66. It has electric power steering, ABS, a modern fuel sell, sequential manual transmission and an anti-stall multiplate clutch. Only 10 Type 66s will be built, one for every race in the 1970 Can-Am season. Each one will cost more than GBP1 million, or $1.27 million. And, unsurprisingly, it's for the track only. Related Video: