Well the drive of the Lotus Exige CUP 260 managed to come through and yep I was the only person allowed to drive it before it went to Targa Tasmania to compete, and bloody amazing it was to drive too. A pure race car for the road it felt, totally un-driveable for the road, totally un-practical, totally FUN!

 

Queue cheesy smile for the camera!

My full article write-up of the drive is live on TheMotorReport.com.au site right now right here: 2009 Lotus Exige Cup 260 First Test Drive

 

The Cup 260 competing on Day 1 of the Targa Tasmania 2009

Jump 2 weekends on and I had booked a weekend (Friday night to Monday morning) with my dream car the Porsche GT3. This one was provided by the supercar club and it came in White with only a couple of small options thrown at it, perfect. I think the Porsche GT3 looks best in White, it looked great, if I was ever to buy one it would surely be in White, I was in love. For years now my dream car has been the Porsche GT3 & its rarer GT3 RS cousin. The proof, I have a large framed photo of a Orange GT3 RS on the Nurburgring ring on my hallways wall 🙂

But back to driving the Porsche GT3……. By far the best highlights of the car were its rock solid suspension feeling, totally direct steering feel and above all an engine you couldn’t fault and made me smile inside with every push of the accelerator.

With its 415HP the power from 4500rpm surged massively and was more than enough for the road. As you pressed your foot to the carpet, the rear would squat down and push into the road as it accelerated hard.

The sound from the flat 6 cylinder 3.6 litre race bred Porsche motorsport derived engine sounded like it was truly from the race track. It sounded just like what you hear when watching the Porsche Carrera cup races on TV. For the good reason too that it’s the same engine used in those cars, just in this road car form its carrying a bit more lard up front. Still 0-100kph in around 4.5 seconds cant be snuffed at.

I did find it a tad loud from the exhaust on the motorway sections of which I did a few 100km’s in the end. After returning the car the supercar club representative Mark, said it sounded like the exhaust baffles were jammed wide open, giving it full volume all the way. Still I agreed with him, I would of rather them jammed open than jammed shut 🙂

So GT3 or Audi R8, both the same pricing here in Australia? After driving them both just 1 month apart and both for more than 500km’s I would say the R8 just pips it to the post slightly, and I mean just slightly. The R8 has the advantages of the all-wheel drive grip on the road, much more advanced magnetic adjusting suspension and a V8 that delivers around the same power but crucially all through the rev-range.

I’d still take the GT3 in White though 🙂 Second hand one’s are now coming on the market for $190k, give it 12 more months and it could be attainable to the likes of Mr. average Joe blogs armed with a bit of finance like me 🙂