Meet the Lotus Exige Sport 350 Special Edition

Meet the latest special edition Lotus. We’ve had rather a few stickered-up specials from Norfolk this year, and this is the latest, the final car in a trilogy that marks the company’s 50 years at its Hethel plant.

It is the Exige Sport 350 Special Edition, and it follows the Evora 400 and Elise 250 specials.

Thanks to a bunch of weight-saving tech as standard, it weighs 26kg less than a regular Lotus Exige Sport 350. The grams have been lost via a lighter battery, carbon seats, forged alloy wheels, and the wonderfully phrased “optimised use of sound insulation”. Lotus, famed for 'adding lightness', has taken away some sound deadening.

A six-speed manual is your only gearbox choice, and it’s linked to the 345bhp supercharged V6 that’s been an Exige staple for a few years now. With a Fiesta-like 1099kg to carry, that means 0-60mph in 3.7 seconds, and a 170mph top speed.

The exterior boasts the most obvious clues to this 350’s special edition status, your pick from Essex Blue, Old English White, Dark Metallic Grey and Motorsport Black paint being mated to contrasting stripes. The roof panel and wings, meanwhile, are all matt black.

Lotus says 50 will be made, and at £61,900 - £6000 more than a standard Sport 350 – we’re told it represents a sizeable saving over specifying all the weight-saving gubbins yourself.

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