LOTUS 3-ELEVEN 430
Lotus’s new 3-Eleven 430 offers the best of both worlds – supercar-slaying track performance and a pure and potent driving experience on the open road. A fitting swansong, then, for the fastest road car to ever roll out of Hethel
It’s the fastest car Lotus has ever built. It’s also one of the most extreme. Could it also be one of its best?
I’VE BEEN STUCK BEHIND THE tracking car for a few laps now as evo’s Aston Parrott shoots all the angles. The supercharged V6 sitting over my shoulder is happy to amble, but there’s a sense of barely contained and powerful forces itching to be unleashed. Finally I’m given a thumbs up, and the car ahead peels off to reveal Hethel’s invitingly long Mansell Straight. Well, you would, wouldn’t you? With second gear hooked and around 2000rpm dialled in, I squeeze the throttle. The response is instant, with no lag and no feeling of inertia. Yet it’s only when the bars on the digital rev counter click past 4000rpm that the bottle is truly uncorked and the acceleration turns from vivid to breathtaking, the car surging forward with real violence. The revs rise more quickly, too, meaning I need to get busy with the gearlever to avoid crashing into the 7000rpm limiter. Before I know it I’m in fourth gear, the speedo readout is well into three figures and the buffeting airflow is doing its best to pull the helmet off my head. So, the new Lotus 3-Eleven 430 is fast, then. Very fast.
In fact, it’s the fastest road car the firm has ever made. Not only has it set the lap record around Lotus’s Hethel test track (1min 24sec, beating the Evora GT430 by 1.8sec), it’ll crack 0- 60mph in a whisker over three seconds and, if your head’s still attached to your shoulders, keep going until it hits 180mph.
So, what is the 3-Eleven 430? Essentially, it’s one of the most extreme and focused road-legal track cars money can buy, plus it’s a celebratory swansong for the hardcore 3-Eleven series that debuted in 2016. Once the 20 examples of the £102,000 430 have rolled out of Hethel, the 3-Eleven will be consigned to the history books as Lotus looks to the latest phase of its ambitious expansion plan. What do you get for your cash? The simple answer is more power and greater downforce, but there are also numerous detail changes that all add up to deliver one of the most intoxicating experiences you can have on four wheels.
Just like the original 3-Eleven, the 430 gets the same Elise-derived extruded aluminium chassis that features an Msa-approved roll-cage and is covered in all-carbonfibre bodywork, of which plenty is left unpainted – and when you see the quality of the finish you can understand why Lotus didn’t want to hide it. However, the 430 benefits from a new rear wing that sits 50mm higher than before, and that works in combination with a longer front splitter to create 265kg of downforce at 180mph – 44kg more than the old car.
Climbing over the high sides (there are no doors) takes practice and gymnastic flexibility, but once inside you’ll find a simple yet elegant interior that’s geared towards just one thing: driving. The thinly padded carbon seats are new and make up the bulk of the 5kg weight-saving over the previous model (Lotus quotes a dry figure of 920kg), while ahead of the driver is an almost infinitely configurable TFT display – you can see everything from speed and engine revs, through to a real-time readout of almost every parameter being monitored by the ECU. Next to this is a small carbon panel housing the start button, battery isolation switch and headlamp controls, and, well, that’s about it. Yet despite its stark simplicity, the interior feels special. There’s the exposed gear linkage with its glorious concoction of cast metal components and polished links – it’s a small thing, but it really adds to the bespoke feel. Then there’s the exquisitely finished carbon dash and beautifully stitched Alcantara trim covering the seats, gearlever surround and handbrake grip.
Thumb the starter button and, after a brief mechanical churn, the engine cracks noisily into life before settling to a burbling idle. The supercharged 3.5-litre is the same one in the recently revealed Exige and Evora 430 models ( evo 246), which means 430bhp at 7000rpm and 325lb ft of torque at 4500rpm. Even with your head inside a helmet the engine sounds good, particularly when played through this car’s blue-tinged titanium exhaust (£5500; weight saving: 5kg). It’s not a sonorous, operatic motor, but its gruff and mechanical growl that grows to an angry blare is perfectly in keeping with the car’s character. And then there’s the performance, which as we’ve already discovered is staggering. Below 100mph or so it feels like the 430 has the measure of many supercars, and while the bluff aero pegs the car back a little as speeds rise, it still has the puff to keep you pinned to that lightweight seat.
Yet the 430’s prowess around a lap is as much about control as it is power. The unequal-length doublewishbone suspension will be familiar to owners of the old car, as will the Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres (225/40 R18 front, 275/30 R19 rear), but our test car is kitted out with the full track-attack options list, which
runs to Öhlins TTX two-way adjustable dampers (£2500) and adjustable anti-roll bars (£1000). The car is set up with everything in medium, and for most people, most of the time, that’ll do just fine, as it makes for a car that’s absurdly quick through the bends yet amazingly approachable and adjustable.
It’s the steering that gives you the first hint that the 430 is a bit special. The small rim requires real heft at low speed, but get moving and the effort required diminishes, yet it still feels meaty and connected, delivering a richly detailed commentary that tells you precisely how much grip there is on the damp but quickly drying surface. There’s bags of grip, too, those sticky Michelins clinging on with breathtaking tenacity when warmed through (Lotus reckons 1.5G of lateral grip is available, and my frequently crushed internal organs are inclined to agree). The speed and composure the car displays through the rapid direction changes of the Graham Hill complex has me laughing into my helmet at the absurdity of it all, while through the really fast stuff it’s poised and planted, with the merest hint of stabilising understeer. With no stability control, it needs to be, too. The only electronic aid is the clever six-stage traction control that allows you to gradually tweak the digital intervention as your confidence builds. Yet even with everything disabled the Lotus rarely struggles to put its power down.
Yes, you can play with the car’s balance, using the throttle to tighten your line and hooking up the Torsen limited-slip differential for some oversteer antics on the exit, but the 3-Eleven is really in its element when driven with precision. Do this, and you’re soon sucked into a world where nothing matters but that immaculately executed corner entry, the perfectly sliced apex and the maximum-speed exit. You’re further encouraged to push by the Abs-backed AP brakes, which are powerful, progressive and connected to a pedal that’s full of feel.
As a track tool the 430 is unrivalled by almost everything, bar the thinly disguised motorsport machinery you occasionally see at trackdays. Yet while these racing refugees arrive on the back of a trailer, the Lotus can get there under its own steam. If anything, the 3-Eleven is even more absorbing on the road. I politely decline the helmet for my foray onto Norfolk’s finest and opt instead for a woolly hat and sunglasses. There’s the odd fly-in-the-face moment, but the trade-off is a level of sensory immersion that few cars can deliver. With no glass or pillars to get in the way you get a panoramic view, while your ears hear so much more: the whine of the supercharger, the occasional sigh from the intake system, the ping-ping of stones on the chassis.
The 430 is explosively fast on the road, too, but in a different way. Out here you use the prodigious torque, short-shifting the precise and mechanical gearchange to shrink the straights and zap past slower cars. Corners and roundabouts are dispatched with a lowroll, low-inertia disdain, and even at 50 per cent effort the Lotus is still the fastest thing on the road. What’s really remarkable, though, is the ride. So beautifully judged is the damping that the 430 glides where other trackday specials would leave you with double vision and a chiropractor bill to match the car’s price.
It’s hard not to be envious of those lucky enough to get hold of a 3-Eleven 430. On any given trackday it’s likely to be the fastest, most fun thing out there. It’s also a fitting send-off for one of the fastest, maddest, downright brilliant Lotuses there’s ever been.
‘As a track tool the 430 is unrivalled. But if anything it’s even more absorbing on the road’