Lotus Exige S 2015 Review

The inexorable passing of time has brought many great things into our lives – including smartphone stoop and Kevin Spacey retinal burn – but somehow Lotus sports cars have bucked the trend. The boutique UK manufacturer’s cars are a constant reminder that progress isn't always, well, a good thing.

It doesn’t matter whether this adherence to the good old days of car development is by design or necessity, because truth be told, an ageing tub, a lack of power steering and an outdated Toyota powerplant conspire to make the Lotus Exige S a highly engaging car. (A bit like too much salt and pepper and questionable cooking oil make KFC such a taste sensation).

Granted, the latest, UK-built Exige S makes a small concession to the demands of the masses – a six-speed automatic gearbox – but even with a self-shifting cog-swapper this featherweight coupe remains an instinctive and engaging sports car.

Hunkering down into the un-adjustable, unyielding bucket seats of the go-fast Lotus is no mean feat – the sills are crazy wide and it's lower than a petty thief making off with your kids' bike and helmet. And dropping the last 5cm into the thinly cushioned pews is almost as unpleasant as the regret that emerges soon after digesting the colonel's eleven secret herbs and spices.

But like washing away the greasy shame with a refresher towelette, all is forgotten when you start the engine – requiring a traditional key of all things! – and the blown 3.5-litre V6 rattles into life a few centimetres behind your head. A quick glance in the rear view mirror reveals the supercharger half blocking the vision. This is gonna be fun…

It does require more muscles than a 50kg shoulder press to turn the car at standstill, as evidenced during a three-point turn to extricate the car from the Sydney Lotus dealership. Yep, the Lotus has no power steering, just a pair of lovingly-designed alloy wheels attached to a broomstick, it seems.

Once underway, the Lotus is noisy, the engine making a fair old racket behind you, but with a dab of the right foot the car's intent becomes clear. It weighs just 1176kg in basic trim (the automatic adds just 6kg over the manual) so the 258kW and 400Nm on tap is scintillatingly effective at shifting the car's mass.

Lotus claims the 0-100km/h spring is actually quicker with the automatic 'box' – 3.9 seconds compared to 4.0 with the manual – and there's no reason to doubt this. It accelerates with vehemence, pinning you and your passenger into the thinly cushioned bucket seats, with a hint of supercharger whine adding a frenzied intensity to proceedings.

Driven through relatively dense Sydney city traffic, the Lotus' Toyota-sourced (but Lotus tweaked) conventional epicyclic transmission does the job when left to its own devices, smoothly upshifting to 60km/h. Slotting it into reverse and neutral is also a treat, achieved via a quartet of buttons tastefully integrated between occupants.

There were a couple of moments of hesitation where the transmission wasn't as decisive, or down changed too early (and harshly) approaching traffic lights, but there are paddle shifters if you want to take full control of gear selection.

Naturally the stiff ride is unsuited to tightly-packed urban arterials and patchwork roads, and even with the auto, only masochists would choose it for the daily commute. It’s even harsher since the price went up by $6000 in February 2015, adding sportier suspension.

But clear the city limits and discover the right roads, and the Exige S comes alive in spectacular fashion. The mid-mounted, Toyota-sourced V6 engine is an absolute scorcher, with close to 260kW achieved at a screaming 7000rpm. But it’s the 400Nm arriving at 4600rpm that provides a breadth of performance rarely experienced in a sub-$150,000 road car. The way it punches out of corners; the steering alacrity and the beautifully balanced chassis, are simply astonishing.

Driven at full noise the Lotus is epic, and the huge levels of traction on offer incite the driver to push a little harder. Initial turn-in is sharp and even if you dive into a corner with too much heat, just feed in more steering or more throttle (or both) and it grips and goes.

Feedback through the tiny Momo steering wheel is excellent too, the lack of power assistance ensuring every little bump and knurl in the road is felt. Kickback through the steering wheel is intense at times, particularly on bumpier corners as you constantly fight the wheel and make small adjustments.

The mental focus and physical input required to steer the car on extended drives can be draining, but the feeling afterwards is irreplaceable. It’s the sort of engagement you rarely get in modern sports cars nowadays.

Deceleration is suitably prompt courtesy of the four-piston AP-Racing calipers, which attack big 350mm discs up front and 332mm rotors at the back, all ventilated and cross-drilled.

Driven in anger the six-speed automatic gearbox snaps up through ratios with remarkable haste – particularly when the Lotus Dynamic Performance Management is set to Sport – but the paddle shift response times are less than ideal, taking half a second to respond. It feels frustratingly slow in cut-and-thrust scenarios.

It really needs the whip-crack fingertip response you get from a double clutch automated gearbox.

Still, the Lotus is not about doing things the easy way.

The boot is tiny, rearward vision is average, the ride is stiff, and the steering is heavy. You’ll also be subsumed by your co-driver’s body odour within minutes of hard driving, and the noisy interior will wear thin over time.

It also makes little sense in the value for money stakes. Priced at $137,990, it’s about the same money as a Porsche Cayman that could be used as a daily driver, even if the Porker is slightly less powerful.

But for all the hardship and compromises the Exige S is a hard car to hate. It supplies a brutally raw but unforgettable experience, a feast for the senses.

2015 Lotus Exige S Roadster Automatic pricing and specifications:
Price: $137,990 (plus on-road costs)
Engine: 3.5-litre six-cylinder supercharged petrol
Output: 258kW/400Nm
Transmission: six-speed automatic
Fuel: 10.1L/100km (ADR Combined)
CO2: 236g/km (ADR Combined)
Safety Rating: N/A

Also consider:
>> Porsche Cayman S (from $139,400 plus ORCs)
>> Caterham 7 CSR 175 (from $89,990 plus ORCs)