Special: The Lotus Exige Story, from Brands Hatch to the Final Edition

Morning, you! It's Hattie, it's Friday the thirteenth of November, and I've decided the sensible way to spend it is with a car whose name more or less means 'demanding'. This is episode six of the Vertar Show, and it's a Special: the whole show on the Lotus Exige. Where it came from, the quirks, the versions enthusiasts argue about, and what's for sale today.

I've had a bit of help with this one, actually. My nephew Alfie calls the Exige 'the Elise with a hat on', because of the scoop on the roof. He's eight, and I've not heard a better description from anyone who gets paid to write about cars. Me included.

So, where it starts. In 1999 Lotus announced it was going back racing with its own one-make series, the Autobytel Lotus Championship. The race car was an Elise taken about as far as it would go: fixed roof, a load of aero, better brakes, a hotter engine. And the road car grew straight out of it. The Exige was launched at Brands Hatch in April 2000, at the very first round of that championship, which I think is the best possible way for a car to turn up.

The name comes from the French exiger, to demand, so nobody can say they weren't warned. Underneath, it's the Series 1 Elise: the bonded aluminium tub, a Rover K-series one-point-eight in its hottest tune, about a hundred and seventy-seven horsepower, and the air intake smoothed into the roof. Lotus claimed sixty in four point seven seconds. There was no ABS, no traction control, no power steering, not even a radio. Hagerty's writer called it 'feisty as hell', and honestly I'd frame that and put it on the wall.

What I hadn't clocked is that it was a last hurrah. New European crash rules meant the Series 1 Elise couldn't carry on past 2000, so the Exige was built on a platform that was already on its way out. It was made from June 2000 to November 2001, and there are only around six hundred of them.

And there's one on Vertar today. A 2001 S1 at Jon Seal Sportscars, in orange, asking about forty-seven grand. To be fair to the listing, it's upfront that it's not original underneath: the Rover's been swapped for a Honda two-litre, done by a specialist. PistonHeads reckoned a couple of years ago there were fewer than a hundred unmodified road-going S1s left in the UK, and Hagerty says auction prices have been climbing. For scale, the car it grew out of, a 1999 Elise S1 at Mole Valley Specialist Cars, is just under thirty grand. Alfie would say that's a lot of money for a hat.

Then... nothing, for two years. The Exige came back at Geneva in March 2004, now on the Series 2 Elise, and the big change was the engine. Lotus had moved from Rover to Toyota: the 2ZZ, the same one-point-eight as the Celica T-Sport, about a hundred and ninety horsepower and a redline at eight and a half thousand. That's very much my kind of engine. The funny bit is the RAC's point that it was no quicker in a straight line than the S1, because it had put on about eighty kilos.

So Lotus did the obvious thing and added a supercharger. A limited run of fifty in 2005, then the supercharged Exige S from 2006, and from there the names get, um... let's call it busy. Two-forties, two-fifty-five Cups, two-sixties. I had to write them down.

And that's where the market's deepest today. The S2s start at about thirty-two grand, and Jon Seal Sportscars alone have, uh... eight Exiges listed, most of them this generation. My favourite of the lot, though, is at Hilton and Moss: a 2009 Exige S Performance Touring, under thirteen thousand miles, about forty-six and a half grand. Somebody wanted touring in an Exige, and I'm all for it.

Then the Exige became a different animal. Toyota stopped supplying the four-cylinder, so for the Series 3 Lotus took the supercharged three-and-a-half-litre V6 from the Evora S and fitted it sideways behind the seats. It was shown at Frankfurt in 2011 with three hundred and forty-five horsepower, nearly double the engine size of the old car, and the wheelbase grew seventy millimetres to make room.

My favourite quirk in the whole story is the Roadster. Lotus took the roof off and, unusually, it got lighter than the coupe. But then they limited the top speed of the Sport 350 Roadster because, by Lotus's own account, go too fast and the roof could be torn off its mountings. I love that they put that in writing. After that came the three-eighty in 2017, then the four-ten and the Cup 430 in 2018.

On Vertar, the cheapest V6 is a 2014 S Roadster at Nuvola London, about forty grand. There's a Sport 350 Roadster at Bell and Colvill for about forty-eight. And at the sharp end, a Sport 410 at Hilton and Moss, just under seventy-four. The odd one out is at Premier GT: a 2015 V6 Cup R GT4, a proper circuit car, not for the road, which was about ninety grand in the spring and is now about eighty. So the Exige that started life at a race meeting at Brands Hatch ends up, here, as a race car again. I rather like that.

Right, the ending. In January 2021 Lotus said the Elise, Exige and Evora would all finish that year, and in February came the Final Editions: the Exige Sport 390, Sport 420 and, at the top, the Cup 430, with four hundred and thirty horsepower and, Lotus claimed, sixty in three point two seconds. The last Exige was built at Hethel in December 2021: a Cup 430 Final Edition in Heritage Racing Green, and Lotus kept it for its own collection. Just under ten and a half thousand Exiges over twenty-one years.

I'm quite soft about them keeping the last one. And in green, which is exactly the colour I'd have picked.

There's a Cup 430 Final Edition on Vertar today, at The Octane Collection: one owner, under twelve thousand miles, and just under a hundred grand, the dearest Exige listed. A Sport 390 Final Edition at Bell and Colvill is about seventy. Across the lot there are twenty-three Exiges at ten dealers, the middle of the market sits just under fifty grand, and just one has found a new home over the past month.

And it never really got a direct replacement. The Emira took over the job, sort of: back in episode four there were nearly ninety of those for sale, and the manual was asking a bit less than the auto. With the Exiges, nearly every one I looked at is a manual. I find that rather cheering.

Right, a letter. Gareth in Cardiff asked: if you had fifty grand and had to buy something fun this winter, what would it be? Has to be usable, he's got a dog. Gareth, I've just spent most of an episode on a car where the dog's seat is the passenger seat.

Honestly... Biscuit has the RS4's boot and she's not giving it up, so with a dog I'd point you at a fast estate, and I'm hardly neutral on that. But if the dog can sit out the odd Sunday, fifty grand is right in Exige country: that Hilton and Moss Performance Touring sits just under it, and so does the Sport 350 Roadster at Bell and Colvill.

So, mine. My head says the Sport 350 Roadster, for the V6 and the roof that comes off. But my heart's with the orange S1 at Jon Seal Sportscars, the generation that came out of a race series and didn't even come with a radio. I'd have the S1. And before anyone writes in: the RS4's clutch is still slipping, and no, I still haven't rung anyone.

If this one was your sort of thing, hit subscribe and give it a thumbs up, because it genuinely helps a small show find people. Then write to me at hattie at vertar dot com: the car on your drive, the one you're searching for, or what deserves the next Special. And if you're over on YouTube, drop a comment underneath, I read every one. Mind how you go on Friday the thirteenth. See you tomorrow.