Lotus, bless its heart, has debuted yet another new car, the 3-Eleven 430. Supposedly it is the new fastest road car the company has yet produced. I’m more impressed that the company has made a new car at all.
The 3-Eleven 430 does, unsurprisingly, stretch the definition of “new car.” This 2018 version of the 3-Eleven looks indistinguishable from the 2016 3-Eleven. The new one weighs five kilos less than the previous one, comes with better aero and is somehow two seconds per lap faster on the Lotus test track than before.
This doesn’t make a ton of sense to me, as the old car had 450 horsepower from its supercharged Toyota V6, 20 more than the new 3-Eleven 430. But hey, I’m not an engineer. I’m just a guy who looks at Lotus cars and claps a little in the privacy of my own home.
You did it, Lotus. You’re somehow still around.
I any of this really very different from the Lotus 2-Eleven that came out in 2007? No, not particularly. But that’s part of Lotus’ charm. The whole company sort of remains stuck in amber, making variants of the same cool thing over and over.
No more than 20 of these 3-Eleven 430s will be sold, claims Lotus, so enjoy their newness while it’s still fresh.
CORRECTION: Lotus emailed Jalopnik to explain the disparity in horsepower from the old 3-Eleven to the new 3-Eleven 430. The trick is that the old 3-Eleven made more power in race specification (460 hp), but less for road specification (410 hp). I hope that clears things up.