Lotus Exige is Analog Perfection

Published 2025-11-22 by Peter Ternström

Analog perfection. A Lotus Exige 350 and one of the world's best driving routes. It's one of my absolute favourites – the road between Budva and Podgorica in Montenegro. I dare say I've driven most of the fun roads in Europe, all the heavyweights in Switzerland, Italy, France and Austria. This one is in my top five. It's that much fun.

You start in the coastal town of Budva and set your satnav for Podgorica. It couldn't be easier to find. After a few minutes, you turn left at a roundabout and start the journey up the mountain. This is the best section. There are three lanes, two for traffic going up the mountain and one for cars driving down. The asphalt is brand new, the road was renovated by the Chinese just a few years ago.

If you love winding roads, the Lotus Exige is the perfect weapon. It has fantastically responsive steering, without power assistance. An extremely easy-to-use manual gearbox that makes a loud clicking sound when you shift into the next gear. The engine is 3.5 litres, and with the accelerator pedal to the floor, the supercharger makes a wonderful whining sound. 350 horsepower and a weight of just over 1,000 kilos.

I approach a hairpin bend up the mountain. I brake lightly, then click into third gear with the gear lever. The revs jump up to 6,500 rpm. More braking now, then second gear, while I give a little throttle support. I want a stable car going into the bend. I ease off the brake while slowly turning the steering wheel to the left. I'm in the middle lane, with an extra lane to my right. It's almost time to accelerate out of the curve.

Now a short break. Imagine that we've paused the film and a yellow Lotus is approaching a hairpin bend to the left on a winding road.

It's time to explain something very important. The car's special feature. There is a little cheat mode in the car's computer. The system is rumoured to come from Renault's F1 team and is a ridiculously fun detail.

If you have the car in RACE mode, the car's computer helps you drift out of corners. Instead of accelerating gently out of the corner as we are used to, I accelerate fully as I enter the corner. This requires a bit of practice because it goes against all intuition and self-preservation instincts. It's quite scary at first. But oh so much fun!

With full throttle well before the apex, the computer takes over how much throttle to apply for a perfectly controlled skid out of the corner. It does this by cutting the ignition, just like in F1 cars.

The engine makes a BRRRRT sound as I execute a perfect little controlled skid out of the bend.

It feels like the computer's throttle is directly linked to the steering wheel angle. The straighter the steering wheel, the more throttle the computer gives. It gives full throttle long before I would be comfortable with it myself.

The result is impressive acceleration. You are shot like a cannonball out of every bend. Absolutely incredible. Catch me if you can!

Addictive? Yes. Incredibly so. Once you've tried it, you want to do it again. Again and again. The road in Montenegro, with two full lanes of traffic up the mountain, is the perfect environment for the Lotus and its magical computer.

The Lotus Exige was taken out of production four years ago. Unfortunately, there is no future for such a small and extreme car as the Exige (or Elise). Instead, Lotus launched a replacement for all three. It's called the Lotus Emira and is a much more user-friendly car aimed at the US market.

The Exige is an extremely small car. It is basically impossible for really tall people to get in and out of the car. The driving environment is claustrophobic.

Our Lotus Exige is sadly getting retired this winter and will be replaced by a Corvette C8 Z06. An equally entertaining supercar that I wrote about here.