2006 Lotus Elise Yellow Metallic/ Black Touring Package Star Shield 9100 Miles on 2040-cars

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Race Recap: 2015 US Grand Prix was wet, wild, and historic

Hurricane Patricia made landfall in Mexico this weekend, and made her presence known throughout the South. For two of the three days of the grand prix weekend it rained non-stop in Austin, so badly on Saturday that qualifying had to be postponed until Sunday morning, and then it only stayed dry enough to conduct the first two sessions. At the end of a tricky, slippery Q2 Nico Rosberg had put his Mercedes-AMG Petronas on the front row, one tenth ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton. The German had done the best he could to keep his hair-thin chances of a World Championship fight alive. Daniel Ricciardo lined his Infiniti Red Bull Racing chassis in third ahead of teammate Daniil Kvyat, both drivers having moved up a place because Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel took a ten-spot grid penalty for using a fifth engine and dropped to 13th. Continuing the two-up theme, Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg were fifth and sixth for Force India. After that came variety: Felipe Massa in seventh for Williams, Max Verstappen for Toro Rosso in eighth, Fernando Alonso looking good in the rain for McLaren in ninth, and Romain Grosjean for Lotus in tenth. When the lights went out, Turn 1 set the tone. Pole position is on the outside line at Circuit of the Americas, and Hamilton had got himself far enough under Rosberg by the time the two got up the hill that Rosberg had to stick to the outside through the corner. At the corner exit Hamilton used the entire track, pushing Rosberg wide, their cars touching. As Rosberg left the track and dropped back to fourth, Hamilton radioed to the team to say the contact was unintentional. The two Mercedes' and two Red Bulls animated the front. Rosberg passed Ricciardo at the end of a Virtual Safety Car period employed to let the marshals clean the debris at Turn 1. Kvyat started chasing down Hamilton until the Russian ran wide and let Rosberg and Ricciardo through, then Rosberg ran wide on the next lap to let Ricciardo through. On Lap 15, Ricciardo passed Hamilton through the esses to take the lead. After the first round of pit stops the Aussie still had the lead, followed by Rosberg, Kvyat, Hamilton, and Vettel. Then Rosberg got around to take the lead and Vettel closed in on Hamilton as the Brit duked it out with the Russian. Rosberg showed excellent speed, building up a nine-second gap on Ricciardo, but a Safety Car period erased that when Marcus Ericsson had to park his dead Sauber on the inside of the track after Turn 10.

Lotus Exige Sport 410 Quick Spin Review | An unobtainable gem previews an American future

HETHEL, England — You can get the measure of a car brand by the environment in which its products are built. The narrow, bumpy, hedge-lined lanes of eastern England explain a lot about the way a Lotus goes. The character of a company's chief speaks to the brand's intentions as well. Jean-Marc Gales has been portrayed unflatteringly as a Eurocrat bean counter, but his approach has been to strip weight and cost out of the product to the benefit of performance on both track and bottom line, defining brand attributes that Chinese money can hopefully bring to a wider audience. He drives fast, thinks quickly and acts without hesitation. You sense he likes people who do the same, and the speed with which Autoblog posted the story announcing the new Exige Sport 410 is something he commented upon in flattering terms. Despite the fact that it'll never appear on American dealer lots, Gales made us very welcome at the factory to drive it. A quick update on where the Exige is at since it was last seen on American shores in 2011. Though it's still based around what's fundamentally the same extruded and bonded aluminum tub as every other Elise and Exige of the past 20 years, it's gained pounds, cylinders and performance to the point where it shows circuit pace that'll have 911 GT3 owners watching their mirrors. Since going from a 1.8-liter four-cylinder to the Evora-derived 3.5-liter supercharged V6, the Exige has evolved into a proper hot-rod, some way removed from its dainty roots and punching harder with each iteration. And there have been a few. Currently you can buy a Sport 350 or Cup 430 with the uprated, intercooled Evora engine and 430 horsepower, this new Sport 410 related to the latter and benefiting from many of its upgrades but tuned to be more road compliant. And a little cheaper. Unlike the Cup, you can also have it as a roadster, which, in an extreme example of the famed "add lightness" policy, basically equates to removing the roof panel. It's now arguably too much for the local roads, punching hard in angry bursts of acceleration between corners rather than dancing through them. With no power assistance to the steering and fat, grippy Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2s, an Exige is a surprisingly physical car to drive, bearing in mind it weighs less than 2,500 pounds. A test track built on runways that once hosted U.S. Air Force B-24 Liberators is a better place to appreciate the Exige's talents.

Lotus responds to rumors of demise, promises 2016 MY Evora

It's not been a great week for Lotus. Seven days ago, the UK-based automaker laid off a quarter of its workforce, terminating "up to 325 jobs." And then, just a few days ago, it was reported that the company would be ending US sales of its well-received Evora due to the expiration of an airbag exemption. The Evora is the only vehicle Lotus sells in the US, meaning its end effectively removes the brand from the market.
That was apparently a bridge too far, though, as the company has issued defiant statement, claiming it'll be back, in both the US and Canada, for model year 2016, with an air-bag compliant Evora.
"I know that this will be welcome news to our thousands of owners and fans in North America, but the reality is that there was never any intention to leave. The North American market is vitally important for us and we intend to expand our dealer network and grow our sales volumes in the future," Jean-Marc Gales, CEO of Group Lotus said in a statement. "I would like to thank our fantastic Lotus following for their support over the years and remind them that we are working on many exciting products for the future. We will continue to explore our core values on how to make a sports car better by making it faster, lighter and maintain the pure driving experience."