The early 2000s were truly the last years of overabundant opulence and pure ridiculousness for the car market. Don’t believe me? Go back and look at the cars released from 1999 to 2010. It’s a massive list of groundbreaking vehicles that destroyed everything before them and have been the benchmark for everything since. I mean come on, V10 and V12 consumer level (none exotic) sedans. Speaking of exotics, we were given Zonda’s, Veyrons, and Koenigseggs, COME ON! Oh, and more importantly to me… the Elise, Exige, and Evora.
The Great Never Exiting Ones
Now, if you know your lotus facts and some of you do, then yes, you’ll be saying; “Hey! Wait a minute Landon. The Elise came out in 1996 and that makes you wrong and… an idiot!” Well, you would be right, except that’s the S1 Elise, and the S1 was not available in the United States. Plus, I’m sorry to say, but the S1 has the kind of looks that made me glad it didn’t make it to the colonies. So ignoring the S1 makes me right, albeit still an idiot. Don’t you dare ask about the Europa S either.
Few road legal automobiles have as an exacting purpose in their creation and use as the Lotus Elise and Exige. Maybe that’s a complicated statement, let me re-complicate it for you. Few road car design teams have thrown away as much market standards to create a car for an extremely specific purpose as the guys behind the Elise and Exige. If you have ever entered and set in one of these vehicles you will understand my meaning. But please do not use the phrase “no compromises” here, it’s a British sports car, there are plenty of compromises. But at least weight isn’t one of those. Nor was the effort and research placed behind the bounded aluminium chassis.
If it wasn’t for the absolute bare bones-ness of the Elise, it would be sitting in my driveway today. But the Elise and Exige flirt with dysfunction, leaning too close to rickety as it does to visceral at times. But that’s the life of a race car and these are, no matter what is said, a race car. There is no mistaking the milestone behind these two when they came to the market.
When The Kids Take Your Savings
I don’t mean your money, I mean your weight savings! You can almost count on… one finger, the amount of mid-engine cars with back seats. The Evora has ‘um. Granted your two toddlers’ unreasonable car sickness on the first lap of your first track day seems like it points to a bad design, but that’s just your questionable parenting and possibly your lack of late apex braking.
As useless as those “back seats” are, the Evora is still a lightweight Lotus. But unlike the Elise and Exige, Lotus decided to provide the interior substance that should come with a car costing fifty thousand dollars or more. Of course, you could have spent even more and purchased an Evora without rear seats, which was available. While I was never really in love with the Evora I think it’s important to recognize that it was the car that Lotus needed to make. The Elise/Exige left a taste of wanting a bit more “special” from the inside and the Evora delivered that.
Bringing It All Together
Sometime in 2023 Lotus will finally deliver on what will have been a fifteen-year wait for a new “achievable” sports car. My first reaction to the news and concept pictures was to grab Jay and spin him around the room like Johnny did Frances, you know the movie, but luckily I came to my senses. Besides Jay isn’t known for his cat-like reflexes or his love of contemporary couples dancing. The longer I looked at the exterior the more influences I saw. This shouldn’t be taken as a slight. Indeed I did marvel at the use of influenced lines brought into a masterful design. There is a simplified exotic feeling behind the Emira. As if to say, “I see what you all have done aaaannddd… I cleaned it up a bit”.
Lotus decided that in order to really hit that “achievable” mark. They needed to reach out to Mercedes AMG. I’ll let the ridiculousness of that statement set in. Don’t worry, by the time the Emira does hit the market that sentence still won’t make any sense. For a cool $77,000, your base Lotus will come with that AMG sourced 2.0 liter 4 cylinder, spitting out 360hp. At the time of this article, this “super cheap, achievable” base Lotus won’t even require you to use your left leg as it’s sold with a dual-clutch automatic transmission only. If base model anything gives your royal skin the hives, then you can opt for the other ridiculous statement of this article. Which is: For that high-priced performant variant of the Emira, Lotus decided to re-source their Toyota power plant from the Evora GT. Dig deep into those pockets for the $96,000 you’ll need to roll hard and fast with the 400hp 3.5 liter V6 variant. That’s a hefty price for what could be considered an outgoing power plant. I’ll interject my opinion here, even if you don’t care. I can’t help but feel like Lotus missed something here, more like a wacky factory mix up from some goofy mobile game where you have to place the right engine in the right car. Why Lotus didn’t use AMG to source both the base and the more performant Emira is beyond me. Opportunity missed indeed.
If the exterior didn’t scream copyright infringement loud enough in your ear. Lotus made sure that the interior design would help you feel right at home coming from any number of cars. In reality though, the Emira interior is a nice upgrade from the Evora. There is a maturity to the design and layout that I find surprised to see Lotus deliver on. Even something as simple as cup holders along with a center armrest is a welcome sight. There was no reason for anyone to expect anything other than dual display screens. A 10″ media display and a 12″ driver’s display. Lotus has put forth an effort at giving the interior a level of functionality that they aren’t necessarily known for. The real problem will be the usual Lotus one, long term quality and replacement availability. But that’s a conversation for when the car actually hits the market.
So on to the original question. Was it worth the wait? Well, the only reason I asked that was because I knew I wouldn’t have to answer it yet. But I’ll go out on a limb and say that it’s going to be a kick to drive and looks fantastic, but that won’t cover why we’re being asked to pay for six figures for NOT an AMG engine. Though I can’t really see buying a turbo, four cylinder either. I guess we will have to wait and see a little bit longer.
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Lotus Cars
