Lotus 3-Eleven Unveiled At Goodwood

Lotus recently announced that they were working on a special surprise for the Goodwood Festival of Speed; this morning, when the event opened, the English manufacturer launched the 3-Eleven, the most powerful and fastest road car they have ever built.

Essentially a Lotus Exige that has been dramatically lightened, the 3-Eleven uses a 3.5-litre V6 of Toyota origin that is also found in the Evora 400; in this application however, it has 450 horsepower and just as much torque. Lotus announced that the road-going version will have a six-speed short throw manual transmission, while the model that is limited to racetracks will get a sequential gearbox with the same number of gears.

• Also: Lotus 3-Eleven Being Unveiled At Goodwood?
• Also: Mazda Will Be The Star Of The 2015 Goodwood Festival Of Speed

The monocoque tub of the car is made from riveted aluminium, while the bodywork is created out of a new composite material that Lotus states is 40% lighter than fiberglass. The 3-Eleven only weighs 900 kg, which means it can go from 0 to 100 km/h in less than 3 seconds and hit a top speed of 280 km/h.

There will only be 311 units built (3-eleven, get it?) and we can expect prices to vary between 82,000£ for the street-legal cars and 115,200£ for the race models.