Scything across the ribbon of tarmac that carves through rocky mountainous terrain between Huwaylat and Hatta, the Lotus Exige 410 Sport instils a feeling best described as high-velocity nirvana. The last remaining sportster without power steering or an automated sequential gearbox, the Exige demands a lot from its driver, and herein lies the reward. The driving pleasure it affords doesn’t come gift-wrapped; you have to earn it.
This isn’t merely a run-of-the mill Exige 410 Sport (not that there’re many of those, anyway). This is the 20th anniversary edition, which chalks up two decades of the Exige – a glorious yet flawed pocket rocket and the last of the purely analogue supercars. It’s the embodiment of Lotus founder Colin Chapman’s oft-quoted mantra: “Adding power makes you faster on the straights. Subtracting weight makes you faster everywhere.”
Bare necessities
You won’t find anything in the Exige that doesn’t contribute to the function of driving, unless you count the laughable DAB radio that looks as though it’s time-travelled from the 1980s. Inside are just the basics – a small plastic-cowled instrument cluster with a speedo and tachometer, plus three twist knobs for air-con and heating.
A lengthy aluminium gear lever sprouts from an aperture in the centre console, and behind this sits a pull-up handbrake. The Exige is as raw and basic as it gets.
You need to stick the key in the ignition before you can fire up the Toyota-sourced 3.5-litre supercharged V6. This motor ekes out 416hp and 410Nm, which might not sound mind-blowing, but the key point to note is that the Exige weighs only 1,110 kilograms (thanks Chapman).
This litheness enables it to sprint from 0 to 100 kilometres per hour in 3.4 seconds and hit 280kph flat out. But straight-line performance isn’t really what this car’s about.
Pootling around town, you may wonder why you’d spend Dh375,000 on a car with such a bare-bones interior.
Worse still, it’s flimsy, rattly and squeaky. Getting in and out is no cakewalk either because the extra-wide doorsill and super-low seating position necessitate some gymnastics. No power-assist means steering effort is high at parking speeds. What’s more, the V6 drones noisily on the highway, especially because it’s situated just behind your ears, with not much insulation separating you from it.
Back-road blaster
It all begins to make sense when you get the lightweight Lotus out on roads that resemble strands of spaghetti, with more twists and turns than straights. Suddenly, all the Exige’s many annoyances seem to evaporate. The non-assisted steering makes your fingertips feel hard-wired to the front wheels, and the Lotus dances with every input you make.
Its razor-sharp agility is complemented by well-modulated AP Racing brakes, a slick gearbox and whip-crack throttle response, bringing to mind the often misappropriated “race car for the road” cliche. It fits here.
If there’s a disappointment, it’s the agricultural soundtrack belted out by the Toyota V6. The only saving grace aurally is the supercharger whine, which evokes Mad Max imagery, but, other than that, there’s nothing sweet-sounding about it. On the plus side, the supercharged V6 thumps out decent mid-range torque and it revs cleanly to 7,000rpm.
The Exige’s sublime balance, compactness and tactility add up to a formidable back-road blaster or track car, so in this context it begins to seem like a bargain at Dh375k. In terms of raw pace or pure driver engagement on challenging roads, there’s not much that comes close, apart from Porsche’s 718 Cayman GT4 and 911 GT3, or an offering from the Ferrari/Lamborghini/McLaren portfolio. Needless to say, all barring the Cayman GT4 cost multiples of what the Exige will set you back.
Over all that, the Exige 410 Sport 20th Anniversary – which features decals, a dashboard plaque and embroidery on the seats commemorating the model’s two-decade heritage – is literally the last of its generation because Exige production has now been terminated. A new era for Lotus – featuring cars such as the more cosseting Emira and fully electrified Evija – lies ahead, but driving purists will lament the demise of the uncompromising Exige, the likes of which we’ll probably never see again.
