If you could recall a while back, we first heard about the Lotus 2-Eleven’s successor, the 3-Eleven, back in March and the rumoured specs were pretty impressive. 420-horsepower on an 890kg car is a perfect recipe for sheer terror on the tracks; that is if the rumours were true. But with its launch at the recent 2015 Goodwood Festival of Speed, Lotus had proven that those numbers are not just some made believe figures from the guys at Norwich.
Say hello to the 3-Eleven and without a doubt, you can see that the car is all business and no leaves no space in fooling around. The previous 2-Eleven got a supercharged 1.8-liter engine to play around but in the 3-Eleven? A Lotus-Toyota supercharged 3.5-liter V6 engine that churns out 450BHP! Couple that up with a car that only weighs 900kg, you will get a power-to-weight ratio greater than a Bugatti Veyron.
Described as “an uncompromised manifestation of the Lotus idiom” that delivers “legendary handling and blistering speed”, the Race version of the car recently lapped the Lotus Hethel circuit in 1 min 22 seconds, 10 seconds faster than the next-quickest Lotus. Zerotohundred for this lightweight monster takes less than three seconds, which puts it well within the hypercar territory of McLaren P1 and Ferrari LaFerrari.
The top speed is 280km/h for the Race version and a slightly taller gearing gives the Road version a 290km/h top speed. But Lotus is determined to put those numbers into good use as they intend to record a Nurburgring lap timing and at the same time very confident that it will be close to the sub-7 minute timing posted by the Porsche 918 Spyder.
