I was excited a while back to hear that Lotus was working on a slightly bigger car.  Although the Elise and Exige are nice looking, quick at relatively reasonably priced,  they are far from being livable on a daily basis. 

 

 

I was expecting something a little bigger, maybe even an entry level supercar. Earlier this year some spy shots and later true pictures of the Lotus Evora were released. They looked good, but not as sharp as expected.  Lotus took a softer front end approach that closely resembles a slightly bigger Tesla roadster. The back looks similar to the Elise/Exige, just slightly bigger.  The roof line is taller to accommodate the bigger car, but looks like it was tacked on as an after thought.

Sticking with the Toyota power-train is not a bad idea. This is basically the 3.5L engine pulled directly from the Toyota Camry.  Since the car is lighter and more aerodynamic, its is obviously quicker than the Camry, but for $75K, shouldn’t the power-train offer more power and refinement?  TRD offers power adders and it would have been easy (unless there is just no room under the hood) to add a turbo or supercharger to the 3.5L for an additional 100HP.

Add 100 hp and more agressive styling and you have something worth $75K, if not, you are better off passing on the Lotus Evora and moving on to a Z06 with better styling and power for about the same price.

Let’s hope Lotus does a better job with the Esprit currently rumored for production.

Tags: Corvette Z06, Elise, Exige, Lotus Evora, Supecar

This entry was posted on Monday, August 17th, 2009 at 2:10 pm and is filed under Future Cars. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.