Lotus Exige S1 | PH Auction Block

It can often feel like we’ve seen it all in auction listings and classified ads. One owner from new, ten owners from new, no owners from new; 10,000 miles, 200,000 miles, no miles; all the options, no options, a never-before-seen option. ‘Unrepeatable’ in the search bar throws up dozens of cars; ‘bespoke’ yields thousands. It’s so easy to search for so many cars these days, that genuinely unrepeatable seems almost impossible in 2025. 

We might just have the car in the PH classifieds, though. The original Exige is a Lotus icon, rarer and rawer than any that followed; more extreme even than the Elise, really, only offered with the spicy K Series tune and always a faff to enter and exit. No easy days with the roof off here, of course. But the Exige was even more thrilling than the Elise, too, the honey-I-shrunk-the-Group-C-racer look absolutely translating to a road and track experience blessed with abundant grip, feel, performance and excitement. 

For most folk, the Elise was exhilarating enough entertainment, and offered that roof-off dimension. Moreover, with track days yet to fully take off at the turn of the 21st century as well, numbers were pretty small for the Exige. That and Lotus making them for just a year, ahead of S2 Elise production. The total was around 600. In the quarter of a century since, plenty have been crashed, bashed or had the engine swapped; while never as cheap as Elise, as recently as 2014 they were little more than £20k. Not much less than the £32,995 asking price, and the appeal wouldn’t have needed much explaining. In 2020, Lotus Silverstone had the very first Exige for sale at £45k. 

This one is arguably even more special. Because in 25 years, three owners before the current keeper and with all the temptation that must come from having one of Lotus’s finest modern driver’s cars, it’s covered fewer than 5,000 miles – 4,597, to be precise. There can’t have been any for sale with so few for 20 years. And that isn’t with an Audi engine, or Honda K swap, or a host of track-ready modifications; this is an Exige S1 as it was in 2001, with just a Larini exhaust that’s altered from original spec. That hardly looks any different anyway. The brake pads are showing just 10 per cent wear, the interior really is factory fresh, and there’s been one MOT advisory. Ever. Which was for a full-length undertray, aka just the flat floor underneath an Exige.

It’s a museum-quality car, really, and what an exhibit it could be. More than a few would surely pay to gawp at the wonderfully spartan interior, complete with seemingly unused harnesses, the Stack dials and a wand of a gearlever, the engine stuffed up against the bulkhead and the beautiful proportions. It can easily be forgotten just how pretty the Exige is, with so much attention paid to how well it drives. 

There’s nothing to stop the victorious bidder enjoying this car as intended, either. While use has been sparing over the years, it hasn’t been non-existent, and there’s a lot of recent servicing as well. Every single year of this decade it has been treated to specialist attention, even with just a handful of miles covered. It’d probably be worth a cambelt change for those really keen on driving, just to be sure; otherwise, the Exige seems fit as a fiddle. 

What an experience it promises to be as well. An Elise – PH’s best sports car ever – but even more so: more power, more grip, more speed. Even if it’s just restricted to B-road blasting, this Lotus promises to be a joy like little else. Subsequent Exiges became more potent still, but the immediacy and immersion of the original take some beating. 

Indeed, the seller only has their car up for auction because recent surgery makes driving it too difficult; as a Lotus Owners Club member for 25 years, they surely would have kept hold of this one indefinitely if at all possible. Their loss is another PHer’s considerable gain, because (you knew it was coming) opportunities like this really are very rare indeed. Bidding kicks off on Thursday.