Car Porn Thursday - Going Bonkers With 350 Supercharged Horses

No cameras are allowed on site at Lotus, but with Phil around there's always a way of sneaking something.
This is me on Tuesday morning, having just enjoyed a fabulous session (thanks, Phil) of screaming, bonkers, foot-to-the-floor mayhem driving the awesome new Lotus Exige S around the test track (actually, it was more like hanging on for dear life while whooping ecstatically).
The Exige S is a 350BHP supercharged racing monster that weighs less than I do and is more fun to drive round a racetrack than anything I have done in fifty-four years. Yes, ANYTHING.

First up, we got a safety and track talk from our racing driver and instructor, John (and coffee and bickies). Then, one at a time, we headed out on to the race track with John in the passenger seat (I got to go first, yay) and he taught us the lines, the apex of each corner, the braking points and where to floor the pedal and rip your face off with the acceleration.
"Brake, Brake, Brake! Down into second. Stay to the left … Now hard right. Over the kerb and FULL THROTTLE!"
Yee and a hefty dollop of Haw!

The car is simply beyond amazing. Come off the top hairpin in second and floor it through the esses and the thing just keeps on accelerating like a maniac until at last John tells you to change up to third at over seven thousand revs (and what feels like seven thousand miles per hour). Woohoo! The supercharger means the torque is there at all speeds, with no annoying lag like you get with a turbo. The upshot being that you floor the pedal and scream with joy as the thing instantly leaps into hyperspace … and keeps on accelerating at an unbelievable rate! It is a seriously nutjob experience.

I have no idea how fast I was going each lap at the end of the long straight because taking my eyes off the rapidly approaching braking point to look at the speedo would have been suicidal.
Suffice to say it was faster than I've ever been in a car, by a long, long way.
And then I did it again. And again.

So … that's the rest of my life ruined. I now know I've wasted fifty four years not racing cars and I now know I must spend the rest of my life doing it again and again and again.

Fucking awesome!

Ciao From Phil's Magical Kingdom

And so we come to the last day in this particular Car Porn Week and close the door for another year on Phil's Magical Kingdom.
But before we go, please allow me to introduce, for your driving pleasure the wonderful new Lotus Evora, successor to the Esprit.

While the Elise and the Exige are built for tearing around racetracks sideways and actually racing, this is for the person with a rather larger wallet and slightly less suicidal insanity.
You might take this over to Germany once a year to shit your pants at the Nürburgring but this is more of a grand tourer than a racing car. More like a Ferrari or a Lambo.

Here's a test bed version (note the headlamps are just pieces of perspex screwed - yes, screwed - to the bodywork).

Here's one in yummy blue.

And of course, British Racing Green.

Here's a link that will tell you much more about it than I can:
http://www.evo.co.uk/news/evonews/225417/lotus_evora.html

And looky! Here's the Tesla, the zippy, all-electric sports car that Lotus make for the guys in California. One of these went past me VERY FAST up the track at the Goodwood Festival of Speed this summer and all I heard was "WHOoooooooosh …"
Fabulous.

And very orange …

If you want to make a LOT more noise, you can always plump for a Two-Eleven.

And to complete the current range, here's the scrummy Europa.

Here, too.

But THIS is totally sweet! A unique, fastback Lotus Elite from the early sixties.
Now that is my kind of car.
Mmmmmmmmmmm …

This, too!
Yummy or what?
Oh, that's a LeMans Aston Martin up on the riser that Lotus are tweaking.

Ooooooh … and a line of classic Lotus formula one racers. Gorgeous!

And to round up this miscellany, here's some of the fun the guys have in the safety department.

That poor face gets repeatedly smashed into things for the sheer fun of it … er … I mean safety testing.

How a crumple zone works.
I've seen Exiges slam into barriers (and one another) at racetracks and - other than some choice profanity - the drivers just get out and walk away.

I'm not sure what this one was supposed to demonstrate but I think that it is the inadvisability of attacking a windscreen with your face.
That's gotta hurt!

Anyhoo … That's it for this year's Lotus birthday bash.
Will Car Porn be taking a break for a while now?
Er … Considering that Phil and Dive are off to the Goodwood Revival Meeting this weekend I think the car haters are in for a miserable time next week, too.
Toodle pip!

Smokin'! Phil's Magical Kingdom Continued …

Today in Phil's Magical Kingdom we are looking at just one very special car.

The extraordinary Eco Elise.

This is a car consisting in large part of marijuana. Or at least the industrial, non-cannabinoid breed of hemp. Smokin' indeedy!

You'll remember from the earlier series of Lotus posts that the company is aggressively "green", with their original biofuel track car, the Tesla all electric sports car and loads of green techno-wizardry going on in Research and Development.
They have also recently got planning permission for their own windfarm to power the plant, making them just about the greenest car company going.

This car is the quite astonishing result of a chat over coffee in the canteen a while back.
Thanks to Phil for filling in the facts.
It all started when the lovely Geordie (a Toonsman from NooKassle, hence the name) thought it would be fun to match the weight of an Elise chassis in aluminium drinks cans (Lotus guys recycle everything they can) to try to offset the environmental impact.
A few other guys tossed in some ideas over coffee including the news that someone was using hemp matting (like your eco shopping bags) to form into solid shapes and mixing them with other materials.
The idea of a hemp car was born …

Boys will be boys and so Geordie and the others got hold of some local hemp and tried making test panels using the same resins that Lotus use with their glassfibre mats to form body panels.

Geordie then took the whole concept and presented it to the board for their blessing and the boys got down to work.

Phil went over to Belgium and sourced enough experimental primer, colour and clear coat to make the entire paint job water-borne and solvent free.
Jason (Phil's paint application specialist) sprayed all the silver and made the whole thing seamless.

Andy (seen here back at the Festival of Speed this summer) actually made all the hemp panels and grafted the entire body together.

The most difficult part was the roof, which is made entirely from one hemp panel (with the hemp exposed down the centre stripe) but which needed fully functioning solar panels inset to trickle charge the battery.

Internally, the seats are made from hemp and resin with local sheep providing the wool for the cloth trim and local timber for the lovely wooden gear knob and handbrake.

This is a one-off concept car, dreamed-up and built by the guys on the shop floor and hoorah for them!
With luck (and testing), these technologies or their derivatives may become standard across the industry and make the guilty pleasure of motoring just a little less guilty and a lot more pleasure.

More car porn on Friday.

Return To Phil's Magical Kingdom Pt.2

Back in the Magical Kingdom for yet another week of Car Porn, thanks to Phil you can buy a Lotus in all sorts of colours, from the sublime to the ridiculous and somewhat beyond ridiculous. Here are some pretty colours from his personal hallucinogenic rainbow:

Here's a nice classic Exige Sprint track racing car if you fancy this particular take on Lotus' 1960's retro look.

My personal favourite at this year's display was this absolutely perfect Exige in what Phil describes as a particularly tricky three-stage opalescent pearl.
The camera doesn't do it justice, but the crowd of people standing in front of it, moving their heads from side to side and going "Oooooh!" at the pretty colours seemed to appreciate its beauty.

Phil's eye-wateringly gorgeous GT3 prototype wasn't on show this year (check back in the "Phil's Magical Kingdom" posts and you will eventually come to it and go "WOW!") …
But this custom Elise in the same yummy sparkly orange was looking enticingly scrumptious.

And of course the best EVER colour for an Elise or Exige is "Isotope" (née "Scandal Green").
The most extreme track car on the planet deserves nothing less than a paint job of complete insanity and this radioactive marker-pen ooze does the trick to perfection!

If, however, you should want (for reasons unknown) to look like you live on a council estate or are a footballer, you can plump for one of many combinations of colours that change as the car moves.

This one is in "Prism green", a very silly paint developed by Taz's mob at Dupont, from their "Chromalusion" range.
Mica particles coated in special oxides (this one is cobalt) reflect two different colours depending on the angle you look at it from. In this case blue and green, but you can get some quite sickening combinations should the mood take you.

This sexy Europa looks black at first sight.

But look closer and it is filled with sparkly bits.
My own car is sparkly black like this, but nothing like so extreme. It's a pity the sun was hidden by clouds when I took these as the effect is breathtaking.
This is "Diamond", developed by Phil for Lotus' Diamond Anniversary.
When you look at in in real life it genuinely appears as if the paint is around four inches deep. The sparkly bits look like they go waaaay deep into the bodywork.
You remember Linda Fiorentino in Men In Black when she sees the tiny galaxy? That look in her eyes was the same look in the the eyes of the folk ogling this baby.
Woo and hoo!

Lots more to come.
We have the fabulous new luxury sports monster the Lotus Evora, crash test dummy mayhem, vintage sex and the car made of marijuana.
Stay tuned, car porn fans …

Return To Phil's Magical Kingdom

Yay! With a side order of Huzzah!
This year marks the sixtieth birthday of Norfolk's überspiffy Lotus Sports Cars.
And so naturally we head back over to Phil's Magical Kingdom for a birthday party cum open day.
Old Dive shoehorned neighbours Jerry and John into my little black car and off we tootled to the land of Lotus.

These - as some of you may remember - usually sit in Phil's office. Along with the chocolate biscuits!
Anyone new to all this would be well advised to whiz down to the bottom of this post and click on the "Phil's Magical Kingdom" link. Then follow the "older posts" button back to the start and take a good look around. Then come back here and we'll carry on.

Sensible cars deserve sensible colours. Mad fucking nutjob race cars deserve a more skewed approach to sanity.

Before we get on to the stunning new Evora and Dive's personal favourite, the biodegradable car made from marijuana, let's have a little recap of what actually goes on here.

This is not the kind of chassis you'll find under your own car (unless of course you drive a Lotus).
These guys make the best driver's cars in the world and all the top manufacturers queue up to have Lotus fettle their suspensions.
Nothing comes close to one of these, though, if you want to go round corners at speeds well in excess of sanity.
You've seen flies flying in squares; these make flies look like clumsy, lumbering sloths when it comes to cornering.

No robots here. All hand built by people who really know what they're doing.

As the production line snakes through the factory, the cars gradually start looking more … er … "vehicular".

Until they end up ready to tear out onto the test track.

More yummy Two-Elevens. It was one of these that Phil raced up the track at the Goodwood Festival of Speed this summer.
As the one in the foreground shows, you can actually order them in normal colours.

Or not …

Much more to come.
Those who don't like car porn might as well go home.

Phil's Funny Farm

For the last visit to Phil's playground this week, we shall discover what happens when a team of boys and girls from Norfolk get distracted from making hand-built racing and sports cars and let their minds wander.

Some of the stuff that comes oozing out of their brains is fantastic and even sane … some of the other stuff, however, makes you nervous when they smile at you.

Let's start off though with a treat for Rich.

Rich, you wanted a candy-apple red Elise; here's a sweet little Mark I with your name on it.
It even comes with free balloons.
What more can a man ask?

This is one of the saner projects, and will be whizzing noiselessly past you fairly soon.
It is the Tesla.
The first real electric sports car.
Marketed out of San Diego to catch the Schwarzzenegger Green Wave, these little beauties are made here (that's Phils' "Chrome Orange" paint job).
If you want to go from 0 to 60mph in 4 seconds without any engine noise this is the baby for you.
A usable range between recharges and a top speed to take your head off, married to Lotus's worldbeating handling gives you a pretty groovy package.
Currently only available in California but coming to Britain next year.
Expect to pay around £48,000.
And you can park 'em for free in Westminster, which, if you work here like I do will pay for itself pretty bloody quickly.

This little cutie was up for grabs as a kiddies' prize.
Cool!

This is your standard Yank package: the Elise "California".
It's basically an Elise with pretty leather door trim so Americans can pose when they get in and out.
Rumour has it they're making one twice as wide for fat American butts.

If you want a sane, family car, this is as close as you'll get: the current model Europa S.
Watch out for the Eagle though; coming soon.

The Europa's smiling face.

Every year at the Goodwood Festival of Speed they have a "Soapbox Challenge" where anybody is welcome to make an unpowered go-kart to race down the twisty hill-climb course.
There are always some spectacular wipeouts.
Lotus used to make a different kart each year but as they always won they've been kinda banned from taking part.
This is one of them. Sweet, huh?

This makes my nose hurt.
The "head impact test rig" in the "smashing cars into walls" department.

This was Lotus's cool 4WD concept car which they stupidly never put into production.
It wipes the floor with the Porsche Cayenne.
And is considerably prettier.

Still in the Design Team building, this is what happens when little fingers play with clay.
These things get modelled up in mud for wind tunnel testing and for making the moulds for the real thing.

Meanwhile, in the rubber room …
Some idiot is about to try to race across the antarctic in this.
It's got an open cockpit fer Chrissakes!
He'll be dead before he's gone a mile.
Hey ho.

Back to Coolsville and the massively wonderful Lotus 340R.
They only made 340 of 'em so you'll have to scour eBay.

Fucking sweet though, eh?

Sweet but yet somehow insane.
This is the Lotus Exposé.
A totally see-through racing car which holds several hill-climb racing records and can be seen going nutjob at races all over the world.

And here's the car I want the most.
Lotus are pretty hot on their Green credentials; they are about to put up three massive wind turbines to power the whole factory.
They make hybrid cars but this is their biofuel Exige.
Note the in-joke of the green leather seat on the green stripe side and the yellow seat on the yellow side.

The 265 E.
I want one.
Badly.
You can fill it up with vegetable oil down at Morrisons' supermarket and it is actually FASTER than the petrol-fuelled Exige!
Cool!

Thus endeth this little trip around Phil's Magical Kingdom.
We hope you enjoyed it. Please come again.
Toodle Pip.