From the Lotus press release:
Translated as ‘dark’ from Italian, the name ‘Scura’ reflects the stealth character of this already fierce looking Lotus and its stunning soft-feel matt black paint finish. Limited to just 35 cars globally, this Exige evokes a desire to ‘indulge your dark side’. This is a serious looking car and enhancements to performance and a reduction in weight from the production level Exige S means that the Exige Scura demands to be driven by a serious driver.
The Lotus Exige Scura is painted in a ‘soft feel’ water borne matt black paint finish that is resistant to most normal forms of atmospheric attack provided the special cleaning and maintenance requirements as specified by Lotus are strictly adhered to. However due to the textured matt finish, fading or discolouration of all or part of the matt paint finish may occur during the early life of the vehicle and this is considered normal and is specifically excluded from any warranty given by Lotus. The special matt paint finish utilised on the Lotus Scura is provided with a limited warranty of the earlier of 12 months or 12,000 miles/20,000 km from the date of first registration of the vehicle. Please consult your Authorised Lotus Dealer for full details.
With this paint job, there is no chance a Lotus won’t be driven over by every cellphone toting, mall hopping, latte drinking, luxury SUV driving American on the road.
Lotus should just sell you an extra set of body panels with every new car sold.
If it’s laser absorbing paint, I love it.
Twotone
Cops couldn’t see this car, could they?
Batman just called…he’d like his daily driver back.
Has the Lotus design department been taking its lessons from Hans Christian Andersen? I guess I’ll be the one to point out the obvious.
I have a car just like this sitting in my driveway. It’s my son’s auto-body project car. It only took an hour and a gallon of black primer to make it look like a european trend-setter. Who knew he had such great taste? Perhaps I’ll send Lotus his resume.
“Sciocco.” Should be its name.
I’d kill to have one, please ask me to kill for you.
I’ve never seen matte paint look good on a car, even when it’s done well. It’s incredibly high-maintenance, and even if you keep it in good care it still looks like someone used spray-on Tremclad on your car.
Now, if they sold one that was finished with nothing more than a polish on the underlying material, that would be awesome.
It would look intimidating if only the car weren’t so damn tiny and cute.
It’s sort of like the CF Lotus Elise, but on a budget.
“provided the special cleaning and maintenance requirements as specified by Lotus are strictly adhered to.”
The daily washing with Q-Tips, distilled water, and baby shampoo will only take a few hours.
“fading or discolouration of all or part of the matt paint finish may occur during the early life of the vehicle and this is considered normal”
But no matter what you do it will look like a beater within two years.
What damn kid put that big gaudy wing, wind scoop, and ground effects on that Cobalt with the bad paint job?
I have GOT to get one of these, only because the finish matches my Sigg water bottle!
I guess you could get some spray-on bedliner for touch-up.
Call me cheesy but I love the matt black look. I fully plan to murder out my Bimmer in the near future.
I’ve got a primer gray Mustang with Orange Monte Carlo stripes (don’t laugh, I was surprised at hwo well those colors go together). I was going to have it painted by a professional until now. Lotus has made me realize that flat paints aren’t just for houses anymore.
It’s like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black.
They got a regular Exige and added some chalkboard paint.
Always preferred the Elise myself.
I guess the fact that the entire production run is only 35 gives us a pretty good idea of how Lotus views the market acceptance. Ugly, ugly, ugly.
What’s wrong with this picture?
“Translated as ‘dark’ from Italian, the name ‘Scura” …
… on an British sports car must signify a special Lucas “Prince of Darkness” electical accessories package.
Proton’s marketing department needs a lunch with someone from the Jaguar Owner’s Club.
I can’t imagine what Lotus is thinking here. Guess all the pretty colors are already taken by the big companies.
Looks like somebody bought a scrapped Lotus and can’t afford to get it painted properly.
On the ownership experience side….
Had a friend who owned a 70 Road Runner with a factory painted flat black stripe on the hood – the idea was that there wouldn’t be any glare in the driver’s eyes.
It was miserable to keep clean… among other things we learned was that you can’t wax flat black – and it will take you 100 years to get that wax out.
It looks cool in a Mad Max kinda way, but I wouldn’t pay for one. Like others have said, it will look like crap the first day it gets dirty. And it will stay looking like crap, because nobody will have the patience to clean it, including the guy Mr. Rich hires to do it.
JSForbes: They really turned the black up to 11, didn’t they? :-)
What I really, really want is a car in polished metal like an old WW2 aircraft.
This reminds me of a certain spaceship in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:
“It’s the weird colour scheme that freaks me. Every time you try to operate one of these weird black controls, which are labeled in black on a black background, a small black light lights up black to let you know you’ve done it. Hey, what is this, some kind of galactic hyper-hearse?”