On the 2nd of December 2005 at the annual FIA GT Championship presentation ceremony in Monte Carlo in Monaco, a new Exige prototype was unveiled. This car was designed for one main reason, to enter in the FIA series. A series of races for race cars that have power to weight ratio equally, and also a direct lineage to their road car versions.

 

The Exige GT3 was developed by Lotus Sport, the auto itself is a single seater prototype and with the aid of the performance division engineered to a high spec from the original model.

It weighs only 750 kg, and strictly sticks to Colin Chapman's philosophy of "performance through light weight". It utilises a race prepared 1.8 2ZZ-GE VVTL-i engine and a Roots supercharger with an air to air intercooler which uses the Lotus T4e ECU to produce 285 bhp @ 7,800 rpm. This creates a power to weight ratio of 380 bhp / tonne or 2.6 kg / PS.

 

Like the standard Lotus Exige, the GT3 is kitted out with the award-winning light weight aluminium bonded chassis, as well as light weight 5-spoke forged alloys, carbon panels, revised high downforce aerodynamics with added race front splitter and adjustable rear wing made from Carbon fibre. The car even has FIA approved 6-point roll cage, ignition kill switches, uprated suspension & brakes and with 3-way adjustable Öhlins dampers. and the whole thing is complimented by Lotus sequential 6 speed gearbox, and data logging system.