Lotus Cars USA has begun offering supercharger kits to go along with their Elise and Exige models. The kit includes higher flow injectors, a supercharger with integrated intake manifold and new ECU calibrations. It also complies with all legal standards in the United States. The kit also brings 189 HP up to an impressive 218 HP; torque jumps from 133 ft.-lbs. up to approximately 155 ft.-lbs.

“Lotus Elise and Exige owners are genuine driving enthusiasts and that’s what has attracted them to Lotus cars in the first place,” said Lotus Cars USA, Inc. Director of Operations Arnie Johnson. “They will fully appreciate the dramatically enhanced driving character these Lotus Supercharger Kits will bring their vehicles and the peace of mind from a fully warranted, factory engineered kit.”

No price has been listed by the car manufacturer yet.

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Tesla and Lotus have together issued a recall regarding 2008 Roadster’s and 2009 Elise and Exiges.

The official recall notice points to the fact that the rear hube flange bolts on some of the 345 Roadsters produced in 2008 may not have been properly torqued which could lead to decreasingly worse vehicle handling and a rubbing noise from the back of the vehicle. The rubbing noise obviously isn’t a big deal but a car with decreased handling poses all sorts of safety hazards.

If you didn’t know, Lotus provides Tesla with some engineering, mainly the Roadster’s main chassis which shares some parts with their Elise and Exige models thus leaving them to issue a similar recall.

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Lotus Exige

The 2009 Lotus Exige is a 2-door, 2-passenger convertible sports car, available in two trims, the S 240 and the S 260. The S 240 is equipped with a standard 1.8-liter, I4, 240-horsepower, supercharged engine that achieves an EPA mileage rating of 20-mpg in the city and 26-mpg on the highway—not bad at all for a car that looks a lot like something you dreamed about when you were a little boy. The S 260 is equipped with a standard 1.8-liter, I4, 257-horsepower, supercharged engine that achieves 20-mpg in the city and 26-mpg on the highway.

A 6-speed manual transmission with overdrive is standard on both trims. The Exige will do zero to 60 MPH in under four seconds and zero to 100 MPH in under 10 seconds, and has a top speed of right around 150 MPH. The Exige looks like a professional race car, feels like a professional race car, but comes with an MSRP that you’d expect from any number of popular sports cars, making it possible to own, if not reasonable or rational. MSRP on a 2009 Lotus Exige runs from $65,690 to $74,995.00.

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