Weekend Roundup: 10/20/17-10/22/17

Lotus Elise Cup 260: Add Lightness, and Go Fast

Lotus, the company whos founder coined the oft-cited phrase, “add lightness and simplify”, has put that phrase to action, releasing the fastest Elise ever produced; the Lotus Elise Cup 260. The Elise Cup 260 weighs only 1900lbs, making it the smallest, lightest road-going Lotus on sale today.

The Cup 260 builds off of the previous Cup 250 and competition-only Race 250 Elise’s. Featuring a slight increase in power from its supercharged Toyota four-cylinder, most of the increased speed is found through shedding weight and adding downforce. While the car only weighs 1900lbs dry, at speeds over 151mph a further 400lbs are added through aerodynamic features such as the gigantic rear wing and louvered front wheel arches.

The Elise Cup 260 includes nearly all of the lightweight Elise Cup options as standard, ranging from the sill covers, roll hoop cover, to the two piece brake discs. With a race chassis developed by Lotus Motorsport, two-way adjustable Nitron dampers are also added, aiding in holding the car to the ground.

The car will soon be available, celebrating the company’s 70th birthday.

Porsche 911 Carrera T Revealed: The Affordable Lightweight 911

Following the success of the lightweight, street-focused 911R and 911 GT3 ‘Touring Package’, Porsche is offering it’s less well-heeled customers a more engaging lightweight 911 Carrera; the 911 Carrera T. While the ‘T’ may be easily assumed as standing for ‘Turbo’ this is not the case: it’s actually inspired by the original 1968 model of the same name, so the T stands for Touring.

To make a normal Carrera into a ‘T’ model, weight is removed from wherever it can be safely removed. It has lighter glass in the rear and side windows, cloth loops for door pulls inside, Sport-Tex seats, and less sound insulation. Unlike the regular Carrera, the T has PASM and can be optioned with rear-wheel steering. And if you option the full bucket seats then the rear seats are deleted to save even more weight.

Weight is brought down by these measures to 3,142lbs, the lightest of all of the 911’s. Powering this featherweight is a .0 liter twin-turbo flat-six that’s in the 911 Carrera, which means it has 370 horsepower and 339 lb.-ft. of torque. With the standard seven-speed manual, it gets to 60 in 4.3 seconds and a top speed of 182. The optional PDK model is a bit quicker, at four seconds to 60 although is limited to 180mph.

Base price is $103,150 and should start arriving at dealers in March, 2018.

Aston Martin Confirms Two More Lagonda Saloon Models

Aston Martin has had a tumultuous few decades in recent years, however the most recent one has left the company turning a profit off of their products for the first time in a very long time. This profitability is allowing the company to further its developmental ambitions. While we know that a crossover/SUV is in development in the form of the DBX, CEO Andy Palmer confirmed that two further models are also under development.

These models are neither Aston Martin’s or crossovers, and will instead be two saloons released under the recently revived Lagonda name. They will be launched (together with another six all-new models) by 2023.

“The truth is, I don’t want either of them to be what you’d call a traditional sedan,” Palmer told Car and Driver when they spoke to him at Aston’s Gaydon headquarters this week. “If we just do another three-box sedan, it’s going to be hard to break into that market. So what I’m challenging the design guys to do is to look for something that breaks that duopoly [between Rolls-Royce and Bentley], but which still has appeal to what is a relatively conservative market and still very much a chauffeur-driven market.”

The market he is referring  to is the Rolls-Royce/Bentley dominated ultra-luxury sedan segment, which WILL need a name like Aston Martin or Lagonda to break into.