Lotus: Go-Karts On Steroids.

I have always been an admirer of Lotus cars. Their dedication to making light and agile automobiles is refreshing, especially when most American made autos are looking more and more bloated. I understand the attractive aspect of a big, bad, drag strip monster like the new Ford Mustang GT and the Dodge Challenger Hellcat, but take one of those into a windy mountain road and all that weight makes things a bit tricky. And with V8s with oodles of torque on tap may send you into the gravel if you aren’t careful. 

Anyway, enough about American cars, back to the Lotus.

Have a look at this:

Uhhhhh. Windshield? NOPE!

That, dear readers, is the Lotus 311: A windshield-less, single seater, weighing less than 2000 pounds and sporting an engine with nearly 400 pound-feet of torque on tap. Let that sink in for a minute. With an average sized person you are talking about just over 2100 pounds of car and driver with a zero to 60 mph time of under 3 seconds. That is a rocket. That is motorcycle territory.

And for an overweight go-kart, the Lotus 311 still has pretty decent styling! I look at this thing and I immediately think “Hot Wheels”. And boy howdy thats an understatement. This is a track car pure and simple, as if the lack of a roof said anything different. All that is between you and the road is an aluminum chassis on one side, and a roll bar on the other. Plus, for the road version of the 311 anyway, the top speed is 180 mph. I think most people would be satisfied with far less, but leave it to Lotus to crank it to 11. I bet it’s good on gas too, something which most supercars aren’t. And that’s just what this is: A supercar. Small, sure, but just as fast as your Ferrari’s and Lamborghini’s, at least until the 400+ pounds of downforce the aerodynamics generate limit the top end. But really, who needs to go 200+ miles an hour? Nobody. Nobody needs to. Sorry Bugatti, I hear you guys are trying to make a nearly 300mph car, but unless I am at the Bonneville salt flats, I am never going that fast. 

The downside? Being a limited production model. That means a price tag of about $130,000 and only 311 to choose from. I bet they are already snatched up, but maybe I can find a second hand one in a couple years for cheap. One can dream!

Read the full article here, and thanks to Road and Track for the news bulletin!