Becker, The Ultimate Lotus Test Driver

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by: Tyler Morris
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Word Count: 429
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2011 Time: 12:43 AM
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For most of us, the phrase "Lotus Experience" means a day well spent, driving a lightweight sports car at breakneck speed around a race track. For Roger Becker, the phrase means something quite different as, back in February 2010, he retired from the famous British motoring manufacturer with 44 years of Lotus experience behind him. Over these four decades, Becker had such a massive impact on the company (and the cars it produced) that he has recently been honoured by having the latest version of the awesome Lotus Exige named after him - the 2011 Lotus Exige SC RGB Edition.

Roger Becker started working at Lotus in 1966 when he joined the Elan assembly line at the company's plant in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire. The story goes that Becker's natural driving talents and engineering skills quickly brought him to the attention of Colin Chapman, the man who founded Lotus in 1948. Chapman wanted to make use of this potential and moved Becker from the production line to the Lotus vehicle development team where he worked with Mike Kimberley, who was later to become Lotus CEO. Working directly with Kimberley, Becker's first Lotus car development project was the Lotus Europa Twin Cam, which was released to the public in 1971.

Since then, Becker has worked on the development of every Lotus project going so that the chances are, if you've ever ridden in or had experience driving a Lotus, you've had direct contact with his handiwork. The list of legendary models is quite staggering - Esprit, Excel, Elan, Elise, Exige - and yet Becker's final project, the Lotus Evora, has been hailed as perhaps the best of his career. Becker himself has called the Evora his "finest hour". What's more, he has worked in support of Lotus' consultancy engineering arm to help some of the World's largest car manufacturers fine-tune their chassis engineering and development programs, meaning that his influence on the industry is quite uniquely far-reaching.

As a tribute to Becker, the beefed-up 2011 Lotus Exige SC RGB Edition could hardly be better. After all, he was the man who did most of the stunt driving in the iconic white Esprit of the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me (perhaps the ultimate Lotus driving experience). The Exige SC RGB Edition, which was launched in June 2010 but unveiled to the US market at the Los Angeles Auto Show in November, packs a 257-bhp supercharged and intercooled 1.8 litre engine making it a good deal more powerful than the standard model and allowing it to do 0-60 mph in just 4 seconds. All of which can be yours for around £38,550.

About the Author

Tyler Morris writes about Silverstone and their driving experience days.