| New Limited Edition Model | Lotus Exige Club Racer |

Lotus has created a cosmetically enhanced limited edition Exige called the Club Racer, featuring new paintwork and interior extras. Outright performance will be unaltered, however. And so the supercharged 1.8-litre unit will still produce 218bhp (or 233bhp per tonne) at a dizzy 7,800rpm, whilst torque remains unchanged, with 158lb.ft arriving at 5,500rpm. Handling performance couldn't get much better though, so Lotus has left the chassis alone too.

When it is released later this month, the latest Lotus will come finished in non-metallic sky blue paint complete with three black stripes running down the centre and over the rear three-quarter air intakes; reminiscent of Lotus's 1960's racing campaign.

Inside, the British firm will offer the Club Racer in a variety of trim specifications seen across the rest of its fleet, namely a Sports Pack, Touring Pack and a Super Touring Pack as well as carrying over the Exige's additional air conditioning. The Club Racer will also use the Exige S's sports exhaust system.

What will set the Club Racer apart from the normal Exige S is the addition of Lotus's Hethel test track decals on seat headrests, as well as black and carbon-fibre effect leather with colour-coded stitching covering the interior. At nearly a five grand premium over the normal Exige S, the £39,950 Club Racer attempts to excuse its price mostly through exclusivity, since Lotus is planning to build only 25 examples of the limited edition.

But despite the fact that exclusivity undoubtedly claims higher premiums, we'd have liked at least a minor tweak to performance to make the Club Racer truly worthy of its price tag.

Kyle Molyneux - 25 Sep 2007