The highly respected Oxford English Dictionary contains no less than 615.000 words, not including medical or technical terms, which would easily bring the total content in excess of one million. In short, English has an expression for everything you could imagine, and quite a few things you most likely couldn’t. Do you suffer from a deadly fear of peanut butter sticking to the top of your mouth, your condition would be known as Arachibutyrophobia. And if you feel an irresistible urge to peek through strange peoples windows as you pass their houses on your bicycle, according to the Oxford English Dictionary you are a Crytoscopophiliac.
With a vocabulary of such magnitude, you might wonder why Lotus couldn’t come up with a more interesting name for their latest offering than 340R, which would be more appropriate for a Japanese motorcycle, perhaps with a few extra Z’s and R’s thrown in for good measure.
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According to Lotus, it’s because there will only ever be 340 cars build, all of which are sold, which you should think would be every good argument for upping the production run to 500. This might indeed have been the case, because when the original prototype was displayed some 18 months ago, one Lotus official quoted that 340 indicated the expected power-to-weight ratio of 340bhp per tonne. But either 340R went above the original target weight, or there wasn’t enough oomph to be had from the modified K-series engine, fitted with Lotus own engine management system.
But with 180bhp to a kerb weight of 685 kilograms, the equation works out to 277bhp per tonne. Still, it’s more power to the pound than you get in a Porsche 911 Carrera, as you’ll notice the very first time you boot the accelerator. You’ll arrive at 100 km/h in 4,5 seconds, and be running at 160 plus before 13 seconds have passed. From a standing start the 340R is right up there with Ferraris 360 Modena.
From a mechanical point of view, the 340R is little more than a stripped out Elise. Even though anyone who’s ever been in an Elise, would readily testify that there’s not a lot to strip, unless we’re talking doors, windows and large parts of the bodywork. And, incidentally, we are. The result is quite shocking in it’s simplicity at times. Just getting in requires the sort of elegance and concentration, you would expect from a naked man making his way across an electric fence.
First you put your right foot between the seat and the small diameter leather steering wheel, while leaning dangerously backwards. Then you do the same with your left foot. Just before you loose your balance, you shoot your feet forward, dropping into the Alcantara clad racing seat. Sometimes you get it right, and sometimes you get it painfully wrong.
Once you’re in the driving seat it’s time to do up your four point harness courtesy of English specialist Safety Devices, who also provides the twin roll-over bar. The interior is like the contents of a picnic basket for an anorexic supermodel. You get a steering wheel and three pedals, and a naked boomerang shaped aluminium bar which runs across the cockpit carrying the STACK rev counter and speedo. In front of the gearlever you’ll find a row of switches operating the bug-like headlights, the heated front screen - and the ignition.
340R makes use of the same bonded aluminium spaceframe as do the Elise. But the composite bodyparts are only fitted where they either improve the aerodynamics or are a legal requirement. As luxury items go, the windscreen is more or less it. But then the 340R was never intended to be practical to say the least. It’s not as much a car, as a toy for the die-hard enthusiasts who revels in the wail from the bespoke Motad exhaust system on track days, or just to scare the living daylights out of Christian Scientists venturing on to public roads on Sunday mornings.
At first glance the 340R looks a bit like an overweight Formula Ford. But give it time, and you’ll notice the elegant shape. Compared to the prototype, just a few corrections were made. The bicycle-wings are extended, there’s a spoiler on the front to carry the license plate, and the rear spoiler has been lifted upwards. Other than that, Lotus 340R has gone from concept to production car in just 18 months virtually unchanged.
It quickly became quiet obvious, that as an everyday car the 340R is virtually useless. When the car was delivered, the sky was darkened with clouds in a gloaming sort of grey. It didn’t exactly take the mind of an Americas Cup winner to figure out, that the car would be soaked in the not too distant future. And you can’t leave a 340R out in the rain as you would a motorcycle, which is a bit silly, because once those Alcantara seats gets wet, they will stay that way for days.
There is a cover for the 340R - a rather makeshift nylon contraption, which looks like something you’d expect to find on a camp site that has been struck by a hurricane - or rather, there is supposed to be. Lotus forgot to put one in the car, so the first few yards was backwards into a nearby garage. There hasn’t been that much noise in a garage, since The Grateful Dead met up for the first time.
Didn’t matter, though, since the next day the sun was shining from a clear blue sky. You really sit quite well in the cockpit, once you get yourself strapped in. Like the Elise you sit all the way on the floor, with your legs stretching almost straight out. You can’t see through the side panels of Perspex, but you can sense the movement and the speed (though from the outside, it looks like your fitted inside an early X-ray machine).
This car simply drips with the joy of driving, since the moment you push that little starter button and the engine springs into life. There’s something special about a car, where you have to start the engine with a starter button instead of just twisting the key. Cars like the Ferrari F 40, the Jaguar E-type - and the Lotus 340R. It‘s silly, I know.
Push it, and you’ll hear the most amazing racket out back. In the Elise the same 4-cylinder Rover K-series engine is somewhat subdued, going on to be annoying at motorway speeds. But thanks to a bespoke exhaust system from Motad and a new Janspeed manifold, the 340R sounds as manic as would a full-blown racing car with twice the number of cylinders. The idle is rumbling, nervous and brilliantly thrilling. But there’s a price to be paid, of course.
Driving around town, the engine frequently dies out, unless you heel-and-toe, keeping the revs up when your braking. This is because the higher cams really do their best at high revs. In other words, you need to get out on the open road. Then the engine really starts to sing, and the four-point harness keeps you from bouncing around like a sack of potatoes in the racing seat. There’s that much bit in the Yokohama tyres, which are not much more than grooved slicks, really.
Turn in, and your damn head nearly falls off. On the straights you get pushed down into the seat, and it feels like the 340R gives a small jump with joy, every time you slam it into yet another gear. Then step in the brake, and though there’s no servo-assistance, they still bite, so the seat belts are the only thing, that keeps you from going straight through the wind screen. Brilliant!
Like the Elise the chassis has double wishbone suspension front and rear, fitted with Eibach springs and adjustable Koni dampers. What really makes it all work magic if the custom made Yokohama tyres. The dimension is just 195/50 ZR15 and 225/45 ZR16 front and rear respectively. How these tyres ever got approved for road use is beyond me, but they bite like Rottweilers in the dry, though I would imagine them being lethal in the wet.
Because of the bicycle wings covering the front wheels, you can see the suspension working as you go. Watch how the let go, when you drift the car into the corners, as you would a Formula Ford, with a minimal of corrections on the lightning quick steering, which again was designed especially for the 340R. As in racing you become part of the car, and because of the brilliant chassis, you can slide the front and back just by pushing the throttle or letting it go. And if you really want a dose of smoking oversteer, just release the throttle for a split second, touch the brake, and slide it round the corner on the gas. It’s that easy.
To start with you constantly brake to early for the corners. You need to get to a Ferrari F50, if you want a braking system which is more generously dimensioned. The 340R runs 282 millimetre vented discs from specialist AP Racing with no ABS. But because of the low kerb weight, you can brake later than anyone. Ferraris 360 Modena runs 330 millimetre disc brakes up front, but weighs in at 1,300 kilograms. The 340R tips the scale at some 600 kilos. On a track it wouldn’t make much difference if you were in a Porsche 911 Turbo or the latest Ferrari. Their ass is grass, and the 340R is a lawn mover.
The final night I had the 340R key in my pocket, the rain was pouring down. But it didn’t matter, I had to take it for just one last spin. I haven’t been that wet for a long time. Den meaty exhaust was roaring through the night, and the spray from the front wheels was cascading into the cockpit, while the bug-like headlights made the road shine like a mirror, and the ice-cool blue instruments lit up the night. It was a magic drive. And it got me thinking. Maybe Lotus should just have called it the 340GRRRRR...
