Car Throttle

The World Cup for the world of football (or soccer for those in America) is currently drawing to a close and I during the main bulk of the tournament, I caught Brazil playing Portugal on the telly. The game ended in a scoreless draw and it had its ups and downs. You could see flashes of skill coming from the Brazilian players but it was slightly boring most of the time. And football has been getting more and more boring due to players following tactics and not dribbling the ball through the defense like in the days of Diego Maradona or even Pele. You see, it's not as if the players aren't giving 150% in the game and relying on tactics; its that if you actually looked

While Lotus may be moving into a new era with vehicles like the Evora, it still remains very much true to its original roots. And that is producing fun and extremely lightweight performance vehicles. The Elise is the vehicle that revived the brand over the past decade. One of the fixtures of the company besides the original founder Colin Chapman has been Roger Becker, who was with Lotus for 44 years. To commemorate that, the company is introducing special editions of the Elise and Exige named after him. For 2010, supercharged Elise and Exige models will no longer be available in the European market. The engine they use, a 1.8-liter Toyota four-cylinder unit, no longer meets stricter new Euro 5 emissions standards. These standards are forcing Lotus to

Since it's almost been a whole month since the last one, it's high time that Lotus introduced another slightly different variant of the Elise/Exige.  Mustangitis aside, I (generally speaking) love the Elise/Exige, and when "special edition" means "flat black paint," I extra love the Exige.  That's a whole lot of love. This one'll either be called Scura or Stealth, depending on the language spoken in your market.  Scura, by the way, is Italian for "Darkness," and suits the Scura to a T.  This thing is blacker than a coal mine at midnight during an ink flood.  "All murdered out" is how I'd describe the Scura's darkness, but it's not cheap rattle-can flat black! Just gaze in amazement at how deep and soft that paint looks.  Lotus

A special edition of a Lotus seems like a redundant concept. I mean, a Lotus is special.  So a special Lotus is...?  Regardless of the existential question therein, there's a new special Lotus out, and you can bet your overweight German sports sedan that I would absolutely kidnap someone's mother for one. Called the Exige Cup 260, it's to the Exige S what the RS is to the Porsche GT3.  Which means that it's a slightly more mental track-weapon version of the range's already mental top-of-the-line track weapon.  Which brings me back to the concept of redundancy. I don't so much care if there's a point to the Exige Cup 260, though.  What they've done is taken a car that was basically as light as feasibly possible,

Oooo baby. What's that old saw about absolute power corrupting yadda-yadda? Well, it looks like the Lotus Elise and Exige just got even more sinful, thanks to a factory sanctioned supercharger kit for older, naturally aspirated versions of the Elise and Exige. If I was being halfway "logical" in my sportscar lust, I'd be all over the Lotus Elise like white on rice. But I've got too bad of a jones for a Lotus 7, so I have to get one of those first, and then I can worry about an Elsie (right after I win the lottery). The Elise is a much better car than a Seven, even if it is bulkier – and that's the only time you're going to hear an Elise referred to

With each and every passing generation of the automobile, one thing (pretty much) remains constant: "More is more." It seems to be what we all want, and so that's what we get.  More size, more weight, more features, more safety equipment, and more power.  More more more, each and every time.  Today's Civic looks gigantic compared to the original Accord - and the Accord these days is about as big as an Impala, which is disgusting. Cars these days are huge, and for the most part have way too much power.  They're losing the plot and losing the point, losing focus and losing touch.  Sure, there's more, and sometimes more's better.  Like when there's not enough to begin with.  But the American mentality of "more is

Another day, another Lotus Elise/Exige variant. It seems like the arrival of the newest, latest, greatest Exige/Elise is about a bi-weekly event; but it's still a Lotus, so who's going to complain?  Lotus is the flag-waving prime example of evolution, not revolution, improving the breed.  The latest evolution of the hard-top Exige has evolved just a little bit more, and it's the most powerful factory Exige yet. The flyweight mid-engine hardtop coupe, based on the resin-bonded aluminum spaceframe chassis of the Elise, fills the "track day" niche in the Lotus lineup.  I think.  Anyway, this year Lotus has boosted output on it's Toyota-sourced four cylinder powerplant again, from 240 horsepower to 257.  Lotus uses a proprietary supercharger setup on the Toyota 2ZZ-GE, which was used in