Lotus Exige Sport 410 acceleration testing

The Lotus Exige Sport 410 is one extremely quick lightweight sports car.

Of course, a 3.5-litre supercharged V6 producing 306kW and 420Nm pushing a body that weighs just 1110kg is a pretty solid recipe for speed, but the numbers Hethel’s hardcore hero spat out might just surprise you.

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Our sister mag Wheels had a go earlier this year, finding traction a little tricky to come by on Heathcote Raceway’s slippery unprepared dragstrip. Nonetheless, the Exige was still the fastest manual it had ever tested, clocking 0-100km/h in 3.9sec, 0-160km/h in 8.9sec and a 12.3sec quarter mile at 185.9km/h.

Our chosen test venue was Winton Raceway on an overcast but mercifully dry day. The 285mm-wide rear Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres need some heat in them but even so getting the Exige off the line cleanly is a delicate balancing act.

Its inherent traction is quite strong and too few revs leads to the engine bogging down heavily; conversely, there’s enough power on tap that too many revs just fries the tyres into a satisfying-but-slow smoke cloud.

Just over 3000rpm seems to be the sweet spot, the rear tyres over-rotating but still providing strong drive. It’s clearly quick, but the linear nature of the power delivery doesn’t blow you away. What does is the noise; when the tacho swings past 4000rpm the racket that emerges from the back of the Exige has few peers in the world of production cars.

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So, the numbers. Hitting 100km/h from rest takes just 3.72sec, 160km/h requires only 8.38sec and the quarter mile is completed in 11.82sec at 192.52km/h.

Lotus is disappointed in these numbers as the claim is 3.4sec, which might be possible with a perfect claim and flat-shifting the one-two change, as the shift is quite slow and costs a couple of tenths.

We’re still impressed, as the closest rival we could find in our archives was the Porsche 997.2 911 GT3 RS, which recorded 0-100km/h in 4.07sec and 0-400m in 12.07sec at 191.96km/h. Ok, so that car is almost a decade old, but it was also twice the price of the Lotus when new and our 2011 Performance Car of the Year.

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The excellent flexibility of the Exige’s supercharged engine is evident in its 80-120km/h overtaking times, with the increment taking 2.5/3.3/4.6/5.3sec in third to sixth respectively. Braking is equally impressive, pulling up from 100km/h in just 32.48m.

To read a full road test of the Lotus Exige Sport 410, check out the latest issue of MOTOR Magazine.