Scrrrrreeeeeeeeech
To dedicated petrolheads, Gavin Kershaw's life seems like a dream. There's the day job of Lotus test driver. Then there's his hobby, which currently involves steering a race-speced Lotus Elise in the British GT series. 'Lucky git' does spring to mind.
Kershaw knows the Exige S2 inside out, having been responsible for setting up the suspension.
'The idea was to improve on the old one, but not lose its sprit,' he says. 'The performance figures are near identical to the Elise 111R so the only way we could differentiate it was in the handling.'
Kershaw joined Lotus when he was 16 as an apprentice, settling in the test and handling department so he could also learn how to improve his race cars. Then he started to help develop cars during 4x4s and saloons, and also did some demo driving on the press launches.
'When we launch the Esprit V8 we slid them around perhaps more than we should've but t did show off the cars well,' he recalls.
For anyone wondering whether they can make it as a test driver, Kershaw reveals something reassuring about his own driving history. 'Er, I did fail my test twice; the second time for being overly cautious.'
Kieren Puffett
