
The first thing that you notice when you see the 2011 Club Racer is that there’s not much to it! Most car manufacturers take a car and strip it down, remove unnecessary parts and replace those necessary with more lightweight, race orientated options and charge an arm and a (lightweight, carbon fibre) leg for the privilege but fortunately for us, this isn’t the case with the Club Racer. The car has had sound insulation removed, it comes without a stereo or speakers, no carpets, mats or cup holder to speak of and even the battery is a lightweight race type. Such luxuries as central locking weigh too much and the seats look like a thin sliver of fibreglass with a few fabric pads in the right places and Lotus even have gone so far as to make it cheaper, not more expensive!
As a package, the car is 24 kgs lighter than the standard Elise and weighs in at a very lightweight 851 kgs. The 134bhp 1.6 Toyota sourced 1ZR-FAE engine gives a power to weight ratio of 157 bhp/ton which, whilst not the biggest number in the world is not what this car is about. Following on with the success Chapman saw with lightweight cars instead of pure power, the Club Racer excels in the areas that you would buy the car to enjoy. No, it’s not a red light dragster – and no, you won’t be topping 200mph on the autobahn but yes, changing direction with speed, precision and accuracy and huge braking performance are here in droves.
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