After a successful launch at the 2021 Goodwood Festival, Lotus’ newest mid-engine sports car will begin production at the end of the year. The first edition starts at $96,100 in the U.S and Harry Metcalfe is among the first people to pre-order one.
On this special, he gives us a sneak peek of Lotus secret design studios and tests out the V6 manual flat-out on a test track.
The new Lotus Emira is nothing short of a phenomenal sports car. It replaces three outgoing models, the Evora, Exige, and Elise. The Emira will come in two variants, a V6 400 hp supercharged engine sold first for 2022, then a 360 hp turbocharged version for 2023.
Metcalfe needed to do the final spec of his car to see some of the options, like paint colors. Russell Carr, Head of Lotus Design, was kind enough to show him Lotus’ styling books in the secret design studio.
Lotus Design Studio is where all Lotus sports cars designing magic happens, from live clay modeling to development.
Metcalfe also got an exclusive chance to view the Evija, Lotus’ all-electric hypercar, which pushes the boundary of modern-day hypercar technology.
Dan Peck, Senior Engineer-Vehicle Dynamics at Lotus, took Metcalfe on an exclusive test drive in the 400 hp V6 manual mule car at Lotus’ test track. Lotus has been testing the Emira for the last two years in disguise, and finally, they now have a validation prototype (VP).
Lotus does all the tunning on the Emira on the road - it’s a road car after all. They use the Lotus track for limit handling behavior, general car high speed, high aero, and low-type performance driving.
While the 1,300-mile Emira Metcalfe tested was a VP, it wasn’t a complete version of the production Emira. Both Peck and Metcalf noted it missed some interior trims and components. Peck noted that the steering, springs, dampers, and roll bars, while still in tuning, are development versions of the production car.
Metcalfe picked out the nimbus grey color for his pre-ordered Lotus Emira.
Humphrey is a car enthusiast whose love and passion for automobiles extended into collecting, writing, driving, and working on cars. He got his passion for cars from his Dad, who spent thousands of hours working on his old junky 1970 E20 Toyota Corolla. Years later, he would end up doing the same with a series of lemons he’s owned throughout his adult life. Full profile
Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?
Google News