The Lotus 3-Eleven Is The Craziest Car I’ve Ever Driven

The Lotus 3-Eleven Is The Craziest Car I’ve Ever Driven

Photo by S. Lomax

Life is crazy sometimes, but it will never go any further than a roofless 416-hp supercharged race car insanely homologated for the road. If you’re still wondering, it’s the Lotus 3-Eleven, the latest limited edition sports car born in Hethel, carrying on the legacy of the legendary Eleven and the equally gorgeous 2-Eleven. We have more power here, of course we do. We also have a bulk body and a massive rear wing hanging at the back, but once rolling you’ll probably have your hands busy holding the steering wheel tight, right? Guess what, the 3-Eleven is a crazy this-is-war statement, but it can also be driven without suicidal intentions. Let me explain.

When Alessandro Gino – CEO of Gino S.P.A. and Gino Luruxy & Motorsport – called me a couple of years ago he just told me Fancy a drive with my 3-Eleven? and at the time I didn’t know what to expect. I collected the car in the morning, ate some flies on the motorway and reach a twisty mountain road in order to test the Lotus behavior in the real world and if at the end of the day my back was fine, my neck knew a different story. The snapping handling through corners of this car is the one you can only have with such an extreme piece of artillery and crawling a couple of millimeters from the ground is one of the dozens feedbacks this kind of car gives the driver, offering a completely different perceptions than usual and suggesting that I probably understood what is like to enter a corner too fast with my forehead pointing the edge of the road.

That was a crazy day, I loved every single bit of the 3-Eleven, an expensive big toy for big boys that can enrich your track day weekends but also creating a whole new level of driving experiences on open roads. It prefers tight bends and I did too, ‘cause when you reach a certain pace on wider corners you really have to be mad for pushing this baby hard. But if you do, that’s all for the glory.

CLICK HERE for the full Lotus 3-Eleven article