The new Lotus 3-Eleven 430 is the brand’s most extreme road-legal car ever


Meet the Lotus 3-Eleven 430, the last hurrah of the carmaker’s extreme yet road-legal topless sports car. Lotus is celebrating the 70th anniversary of its first car, the Mark I, in 2018, and to mark the occasion and give a fitting send-off to the little track-tool, Lotus has built this madness-filled version of the 3-Eleven. To make it even faster than before, the newest two-seater has been given more power while reducing the overall weight to give it a crazy 461bhp-per-ton power-to-weight ratio. The 3-Eleven 430 shares the same 3.5-Liter Toyota-sourced V6 that powers the Exige Cup 430 and Evora GT430. That means it has 430 horses on tap with a curb weight of only 2028 pounds.

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The power is sent to the rear wheels via a six-speed manual gearbox and Torsen-type limited-slip differential. As a result, the 3-Eleven 430 can rocket to 60mph from standstill in just 3.1 seconds and has a top speed of 180mph. At the top speed, the new aero package produces 584 pounds of downforce. Thanks to those performance figures it has become the fastest car ever around Lotus’s Hethel test track with a time of 1:24. That’s two seconds quicker than the regular 3-Eleven and 0.8 quicker than the Exige Cup 430. Lotus is only making 20 examples of the 3 Eleven 430 with a price tag of £102,000 apiece including taxes and on-the-road costs (approximately $140,000).

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Sayan Chakravarty, a Senior Writer at Luxurylaunches, brings over 10 years of automotive journalism expertise. He provides insightful coverage of the latest cars and motorcycles across American and European markets, while also highlighting luxury yachts, high-end watches, and gadgets. An authentic automobile aficionado, his commitment shines through in educating readers about the automotive world. When the keyboard rests, Sayan feeds his wanderlust, traversing the world on his motorcycle.