2008 Lotus Exige S 240 and Exige S Club Racer – Auto Shows

Among roadgoing sports cars, it doesn’t get much more hard-core than the Lotus Exige S. But at the 2007 L.A. auto show, the tiny British sports car maker unveiled two even harder-core (yet street-legal) versions of the bossy little coupe: the 240-hp Exige S 240, and the cool blue Exige Club RacerApparently, the Exige S’s power-to-weight ratio of a scant 9.4 pounds per horsepower isn’t enough to satisfy the speed freaks at Lotus. Thus they beefed up the clutch and added another 20 horses on top of the 220 horsepower already made by the supercharged Toyota 1.8-liter, four-cylinder to create the 2008 Exige S 240. Raising the horsepower to 240 (at 8000 rpm) while keeping weight at 2100 pounds lowers power-to-weight to a mere 8.8 pounds/ hp. Meanwhile, torque rises to 170 lb-ft from 165.