andyt1981

has anyone driven an exige?

im thinking about getting 1 for my next car

shanea

Hope your double jointed, I went to take a look at one. Had to slide myself in with both hands on the road. Had to pull my right knee up to my chest with my arms so i could get out. I am 6ft. It was nice while i was in there though. The wife nearly wet herself laughing

andyt1981

im only a short **** at 5'7 so i might get in it a bit easier than you

LG John

I drove my mates S2 Exige a two weeks ago for the first time. It instantly shot to the top of my list as best car I have ever driven. I can't describe how good/fun it was to drive and because it had the Toyota engine it didn't feel like you were killing it to press on. The power delivery a dream, the actual speed sufficient, the handling amazing and the feedback just other worldly. I have to have one some day it was THAT good. I've got a 315bhp classic STI and it felt like horse**** afterwards!

mg driver

i have a few vids featuring exiges on track at donington from on board my zs 180 if they are of interest .
2 different models on em ,1 is a vvti 190 and other 1 is a 220s.

automodellistagt

ive test driven an exige S and i loved its noise and straightline speed.

The only thing that put me of was the fact that it felt far to bumpy on the sort of roads i like. My impreza would have made mince meat of it, simply cos its easier to drive over the bumps. On the track, awesome, on the road, to scary and unsettling over bumps.

Dark Blue Mark

Kenny, was that the S version?

I want one

LG John

No, n/a - mark, I'm being honest, it took a giant **** on the S2000 for fun and capability. Although, I would say I can relate to it perhaps being a handful on bumpy roads.

chris singleton

Been considering one of these for ages myself - white with black wheels

I'm 6"3 and 18 stone and found it hard to get in/out without the 2 hands on the floor approach also - I think I'd struggle to get out of the thing in my garage as there's not a lot off room between the door and the wall. Once in though, loved the driving position. Maybe a snap off steering wheel would make it slightly easier to get in/out?

SB - did you find the 190bhp toyota engine gave good enough acceleration ? I've been holding out for the supercharged 220s models to drop in price a bit - saw one on piston heads for £25,950.00 few weeks back so they're starting to drop but most are still around the £28-30K mark

Dark Blue Mark

Did you not buy anything after the Skyline, Chris?

chris singleton

I already had a rather nice STI Type RA running approx 360bhp to play with so didn't buy anything else

On the spur of a moment sold the RA about a week ago so am now officially without car and have to borrow the Mrs TT if I want to go out

Still undecided what route to take next, my heart says buy a nice 34 gtr as I've always wanted one - but have already done the skyline thing so not sure really.

Love the exiges also and would be something different from the japcrap I'm used to

You still got the S2000?

LG John

Hard to say really - The delivery was very like my S2000 but I appreciated straight away that it was definately more urgent and especially so under 90mph. So my first impression was, 'wow this is quick!'. However, I then went to take on a one car overtake with a reasonable gap in a case where another car was bearing down on me. The exige definately didn't dispatch the overtake as quickly as my 310bhp STI (classic) and I was starting to get a little sweaty under the collar towards the end (made it with bags of time but I don't like to chance it).

I've never driven the S version but I'd imagine that if it thickened up the torque across the whole range then it maybe would be worth the wait just for that little extra ooompf. You'd never be dissapointed with the 190bhp but you might wonder 6 months down the line if it was worth waiting/stretching for S - what I would say is critical is the nature of the power delivery. The n/a has a razor throttle response and if the supercharger was in any way sluggish I think it would spoil the experience. I know superchargers don't lag like turbo's but there was defo a split second delay in the only s/c I've driven (mini cooper S) and that may detract from the exige if it was the same. Drive both I say

What is interesting is that there is a company (probably more than one) doing a supercharger package for the n/a 190 used in the Exige and the 111R. This could be worth some investigation as they claim 250bhp from about £5k and you can get 111R's for under £20k now. In short you could have a 250bhp supercharged 111R (thus topless (easily)) for £23k+ (in theory).