2006 Lotus Exige - Playing The Long Game

One of the defining characteristics of youth is a lack of patience. Hell, I'm in my mid-30s and I'm still not as patient as I probably should be. So when a young person has the foresight to think years ahead for a very specific goal, it's quite the accomplishment.

The British Racing Green widebody Lotus Exige you see gracing this feature is a result of such a feat. For the owner, Corey Hasler, it all started back in '99 when he was in fifth grade (and I was a high-school junior—dear god).

Corey was visiting a book fair (because reading is fundamental) and came across a small stack of car posters. He bought three and one of those posters was of a Lotus Elise. That moment marked the beginning of a 20-year plan that successfully resulted in Corey owning one of his dream cars.

Despite being very lucky (and very "content") to daily drive a 2000 Integra Type R to high school everyday, Corey still told all of his friends he would one day own a Lotus.

After working hard for six summers and saving up $40k, Corey bought his Exige at the tender age of 22. Though at that point he was broke, so the car remained stock for his first four years of ownership. Eventually he got around to turning his stock Exige into what you see here.

Besides the amazing paint job, the first thing you'll notice about Corey's Exige is its wide fenders and aggressive aero. That is the result of hard work by Corey's friend and bodykit designer, Tim Hicks of Industry Garage. Tim crafted custom fiberglass fenders which flow with the stock body lines but still add a great stance to the car. The fenders are finished off with rivets to give it some JDM flair. Completing the exterior is an aero kit from APR (side rocker extensions, front lip, and custom widened front splitter) and a Difflow Railer Jr. five-element rear diffuser. A Voltex "Type 2" 1200mm rear wing provides downforce while a Reverie "mowhawk" carbon fiber hard top shaves some weight.

Filling the now cavernous wheel wells are VIP Modular VSX210 wheels with a "cognac copper" finish (Dr. Dre approves) wrapped with Michelin Pilot Super Sport tires. With fitments of 18x10-inch in the rear and 17x8.5-inch in the front, the wheels fill in quite nicely.

Though, Corey himself admits that at 25lbs each, his rollers aren't the lightest kicks in the shoe store. However, when you consider that the Lotus Exige only weighs about 2,000lbs stock, even with an extra hundo of weight, his Exige is still lighter than 99 percent of the cars on the road.

Most of the Exige's weight is sprung on a set of Nitron coilovers with 450lbs/inch springs in the front and 600lbs/inch in the rear.

When it comes to power modifications the list is short as there is just a cold-air intake from K&N and a BOE Quaterstick exhaust. As such, his horsepower output still hovers around the stock number of about 180. In the future, Corey plans to swap in a K-Series motor. Though that is likely to be much further down the line as the current Toyota 2ZZ-GE engine only has 35k miles on it.

All in all this build is not bad for something that started with a kid, a poster, and dream.