THE BRIEF had insisted that we take the Lotus down to a nearby shopping centre to illustrate that this car is road-legal and to show what an odd juxtaposition it would make – a mini-me Can-Am racer pottering down to Woolies. You know the sort of thing.

    It worked perfectly well for the pix, but for me I wanted real roads free of ambling slow-witted traffic and unfortunately, it was lunch time so I was restricted to short spurts which barely disturbed the supercharger. Every overtaking opportunity seemed to be almost deliberately foiled. Understandably, the air in my full-face helmet was heavy with uncouth four-lettered language.

    Surprisingly, I did manage to learn quite a few things from this initial low-calorie, caffeine-free 45mph test ‘potter’. The biggest notable being how light, even compared with the rest of the Lotus range, the 2-Eleven feels. Looking as sensational as it does, you expect something special, but such is the reluctance of manufacturers to accept Chapman’s ‘just add lightness’ principle, that its ride quality comes as a genuine surprise. It looks like a road-legal racer, yet its ride quality doesn’t jar nor pummel – it almost feels like it skims across brutalised tarmac.

    Built around the bonded aluminium chassis of the Series I Elise (the one with the deeper chassis sill members) its name reflects one of Chapman’s earlier successful sports-racing designs, the Eleven, which is rather suitable given the car’s target customer-base: hardcore trackday enthusiasts.

    Accordingly, its suspension geometry has been tuned like a fine instrument to include Ohlins two-way adjustable dampers, Lotus Sport adjustable anti-toll bar and rear double shear track control arm brace. The supercharged and intercooled Toyota 2ZZ-GE VVTL-i engine is similar to the Exige S unit, but at 252bhp, it has 34bhp more. The brakes are cross-drilled and ventilated discs with Pagid RS14 sports pads, stainless steel braided brake hoses and track-tuned ABS; and while we’re talking about electronic trickery, the 2-Eleven comes with variable traction control.The finishing touch is an extremely lightweight composite body which gives this car a power to weight ratio of 380bhp per tonne, which is similar to that of a Sixties Formula 1 car.

    Go back to the first time I drove a 2-Eleven and whilst Gez was busy snapping the jazzily liveried Launch Edition car, I was kicking my heels and getting a bit frustrated – time was ticking and soon the light would knocking off and going home. Thankfully though, I was offered a way out of this purgatorial loitering by the 2-Eleven’s father, Nick Adams, and the all-white prototype was awoken from its slumber.

    Add more speed and I dabble in a bit of investigative buggering about. Noticing for instance, how easily it will pull in sixth gear from just 2500rpm – and how it’s possible to do an all-third gear lap due to the 2-Eleven’s lack of flab and 197lb.ft of torque. Racing line established, braking and turning-in points sorted, now the fast bit can start.

    Stamp onto the superbly connected and easy to modulate throttle and the somewhat bonkers and peaky engine comes into its own. The familiar Lotus exhaust and supercharger scream dissipate as your helmet is engulfed in a breaking tidal wave of wind roar. The gearchange light winks at 8000rpm, prompting you to grab another gear on the slightly mechanical six-speed gearchange.

    Bends can be taken at Royal Air Force speeds. The blend of steering feedback, body control, ride and front end grip is dazzling and just when you think you might have been a touch overambitious, the rear suspension’s geometry automatically lends a hand. Such is its balance that it feels as if the rear suspension is bolted directly to your pelvis; immersing you more and more into the sense of connection – it feels like you’re being absorbed into the Lotus’s very aluminium being. Trust in it completely and resist the temptation to add a dab of corrective lock and you will be amazed at the 2-Eleven’s gluttonous appetite for corners.

A round thing, a brace of levers and some pedals; the 2-Eleven's cockpit is beautifully spartan and the only piece of kit which needs any explaining is the variable traction control with launch facility that is located where the driver's door trim would be, if it had doors...

    It might have looked slightly scuffed around the edges – it bore the unmistakable aura of an old campaigner – but thanks to its white paint and its development crow’s feet, to me, its resemblance to real racer was even closer. I wasted little time jumping in and wedging my lid on.

    The view is really evocative – the interior is all stripped out and doorless. There’s a low-fat dashboard with the most meagre tally of buttons and dials. Looming over me from behind is a padded six-point FIA rollcage and I’m gripped in situ by a four-point harness and bucket seat. The edge of the interior is demarcated by a shallow perspex wind deflector and the ambience finished by a periscope rear-view and wing mirrors that are filled with inlets, the large rear wing and roll bar.

    Engine running, I join the Hethel track in the middle of the first hairpin. It then straighens out briefly before a left-right complex. The right-hander then straightens out for the longest ‘straight’ which packs a hump, a right-hand kink and a change of tarmac surface – this then hurls you into the grip of the return loop. Negotiate the loop and it’s onto the slalom-filled back straight down to that first hairpin – and that’s your first sighting lap completed.