Poll: Lotus Emira Discussion
- Thread starter Mysterae_
- Start date
Soldato
Wrong thread.
Caporegime
Looks nice enough for this sort of thing; and Lotus do need to secure their future with cars that sell in volume. EVs are also inevitable. Lotus has made more practical cars in the past it's not all raw sportscars. But an SUV? Really?
Soldato
- Joined
- 30 Sep 2005
- Posts
- 16,557
Everyone's doing it now. Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, I'm not sure who isn't. I mean they are not lightweight machines lol but I guess this has come from Geeley. Lotus have made awesome cars, but they were rubbish at making money.
Looks good though, but it just feels wrong buying an SUV from Lotus.....plus there's no way in hell I'll be buying their first one. Does seem to be packed with tech.
I’m probably getting a Polestar 3 as my next EV, which will be based on this Lotus SUV platform. [Geely own both brands].
Interesting to see a preview of the car
Soldato
I bet the polestar 3 won’t be much diff to the Zeekr and not the Lotus..
Soldato
No need to imagine when SPA2 isn’t 800V
anyway let’s keep that EV lump out this thread.
anyway let’s keep that EV lump out this thread.
Caporegime
It's a pity the Emira isn't currently available in the same green as the Eletre; that's a lovely colour.
Hi there
So I could not mention this previously but the reason I’m not doing factory collection is because Lotus invited me to the factory for a more in depth tour which happened today with one of the directors.
I got to tour the whole production line, see all the new facilities including a lot of new machinery at the cost of millions which ensures quality of the product is absolutely spot on as Lotus seem very serious about ensuring the Emira is a top quality product, from what I’ve seen today it absolutely is.
I got to see all the colours plus three other colours in sampling which might become available on the base car but no guarantee but there are cars rolling in these new colours, let me try and explain how colours look in flesh:
Seneca blue - bright with deep gloss and slight metallic, most have seen this colour.
Magma red - it is a dark red similar to GR Yaris red but with a lot more metallic flake so when sun hits it then it pops.
Dark verdant - very dark green almost black in any shade but sunlight where the green sparkle pops.
Nimbus grey - stunning colour it’s a silver/grey and the absolute best colour for showing the lines and angles of car, looks great with red interior with red calipers.
Shadow grey - Dark metallic grey
Hethel yellow - The brightest colour, the most supercar colour with black roof and diamond cut wheels.
New colours:
Vivid red - Solid brighter red than magma, a really stunning colour but be ready for the Ferrari comments.
Cosmic black - lots of metallic sparkle, nice colour
White - simples.
The car looks great in every colour, if I did not have the 458, the yellow is best and I’d rate blue as next best. Nimbus grey and magma red look awesome too especially the magma with white interior. Vivid red if it comes I think will be an awesome and maybe new best colour. Diamond cut wheels look epic as do silver.
All the cars in factory are pre production cars so destined for further testing, dealer demo’s etc as these are next stage after the VP cars so are essentially complete, I spotted no quality issues all the touch surfaces feel very high quality all soft leather or suede feeling, better than my 987 Spyder and similar to my 458.
The lights on the car look stunning, very modern and great looking, the 2-piece brakes are also manufactured in a way to try and stop the rusting look after washing, the attention to detail Lotus seem to be doing is terrific and they seem to acknowledge their past mistakes and correct them.
Official factory tours can be booked from this Monday for a charge, not sure on cost so you’d need to check.
The chassis / frame structure is 2.5x stiffer than the Exige and the track is quite a bit wider. As such the ride in typical Lotus fashion will be great.
Also spotted an AMG powered car been built as well, given away by the turbo and for those interested the AMG engine is not as tall in the car for the obvious fact that there is no supercharger sat on top of the engine.
To see so many Emiras and in all the colours I feel so privileged and am happy with my choice the blue looks superb as does the yellow, the other colours are nice and a little more subdued for those seeking less attention.
Also heard one driving around at slow speeds and even just slow driving it sounded awesome, a lovely sound coming from it.
Now the big bit!
Right at the end he had a surprise for us, a finished production car which was in the spec as below:
Now unfortunately no pictures in the factory or of said car but you can see this car on the Electre video at BBC as it’s the same car, it is left hand drive but I can tell you that in the flesh this car is totally jaw dropping gorgeous, it has the 488 beat on looks and is up there with the F8, remember this car cost from 60k.
As this was a finished car I got to have a great look around and inside. This car was sat on cup tyres, diamond wheels and black calipers but I have to say it’s perfect spec, also note the yellow calipers are a slight different shade of yellow to Hethel yellow so those going yellow cars go black calipers.
The car seriously has no bad angles, I was looking under it (flat bottom) over it, around it and the exterior is just gorgeous, photos do the car no justice and neither does video, the car was just stunning. No panel gap or alignment issues so the new kit must be doing a good job and the LED lights look great. The doors soft close with a nice solid thud, the final seats say Lotus and the interior was very high quality, I could not find any issues, door bins carpeted, lots of storage areas including a decent space for carry ons behind the seats. Rear boot is a little larger than an Exige due to battery placement freeing up more space.
The alcantera steering wheel feels great, it’s not too thick and suggest the car will have plenty of feel, was not able to start the car but the dash looks great, infotainment screen too and there are knobs for important stuff like heaters etc. was hoping to hear the KEF audio but maybe another day for that.
No photos as this car goes to photo studio on Monday so I suspect we will see professional photos in coming days but it’s a car that looks awesome in photos and then you see it in the flesh and it some how just looks other level insanely good.
Both touring and sport chassis are Billstein dampers and both same ride height. All the factory photos of cars are NOT final ride height the final production yellow car I’ve seen today was the correct ride height been a final car and on the finger test the front end is a two finger gap from tyre to arch and the rear three finger gap. Needless to say ride height on this car looked spot on with great stance, similar to Porsche GT car.
Also the car will be reviewed on Top Gear, white VP car for driving bits and final dark verdant green for top gear studio, most of filming is done and this will air when Top Gear returns, can’t say much more other than expect a rave review.
The car literally looks so good it could drive terrible and people would still buy it but it is apparently obvious it will drive superb as Lotus have benchmarked against the Porsche 718 and Renault Alpine A110 for handling so it’s going to move the game on from Evora in positive way and the Evora was nothing short of amazing.
Huge thanks to Lotus and it’s fair to say they have a huge hit on their hands, I hope all goes smoothly for them and they have a huge success.
Some photos of reception and cars I was allowed to photo:
A long drive but we’ll worth it and now the next few months may not go so fast as the has really exceeded my expectations as a complete produxt finished to very high standards. No one should be worried!
So I could not mention this previously but the reason I’m not doing factory collection is because Lotus invited me to the factory for a more in depth tour which happened today with one of the directors.
I got to tour the whole production line, see all the new facilities including a lot of new machinery at the cost of millions which ensures quality of the product is absolutely spot on as Lotus seem very serious about ensuring the Emira is a top quality product, from what I’ve seen today it absolutely is.
I got to see all the colours plus three other colours in sampling which might become available on the base car but no guarantee but there are cars rolling in these new colours, let me try and explain how colours look in flesh:
Seneca blue - bright with deep gloss and slight metallic, most have seen this colour.
Magma red - it is a dark red similar to GR Yaris red but with a lot more metallic flake so when sun hits it then it pops.
Dark verdant - very dark green almost black in any shade but sunlight where the green sparkle pops.
Nimbus grey - stunning colour it’s a silver/grey and the absolute best colour for showing the lines and angles of car, looks great with red interior with red calipers.
Shadow grey - Dark metallic grey
Hethel yellow - The brightest colour, the most supercar colour with black roof and diamond cut wheels.
New colours:
Vivid red - Solid brighter red than magma, a really stunning colour but be ready for the Ferrari comments.
Cosmic black - lots of metallic sparkle, nice colour
White - simples.
The car looks great in every colour, if I did not have the 458, the yellow is best and I’d rate blue as next best. Nimbus grey and magma red look awesome too especially the magma with white interior. Vivid red if it comes I think will be an awesome and maybe new best colour. Diamond cut wheels look epic as do silver.
All the cars in factory are pre production cars so destined for further testing, dealer demo’s etc as these are next stage after the VP cars so are essentially complete, I spotted no quality issues all the touch surfaces feel very high quality all soft leather or suede feeling, better than my 987 Spyder and similar to my 458.
The lights on the car look stunning, very modern and great looking, the 2-piece brakes are also manufactured in a way to try and stop the rusting look after washing, the attention to detail Lotus seem to be doing is terrific and they seem to acknowledge their past mistakes and correct them.
Official factory tours can be booked from this Monday for a charge, not sure on cost so you’d need to check.
The chassis / frame structure is 2.5x stiffer than the Exige and the track is quite a bit wider. As such the ride in typical Lotus fashion will be great.
Also spotted an AMG powered car been built as well, given away by the turbo and for those interested the AMG engine is not as tall in the car for the obvious fact that there is no supercharger sat on top of the engine.
To see so many Emiras and in all the colours I feel so privileged and am happy with my choice the blue looks superb as does the yellow, the other colours are nice and a little more subdued for those seeking less attention.
Also heard one driving around at slow speeds and even just slow driving it sounded awesome, a lovely sound coming from it.
Now the big bit!
Right at the end he had a surprise for us, a finished production car which was in the spec as below:
Now unfortunately no pictures in the factory or of said car but you can see this car on the Electre video at BBC as it’s the same car, it is left hand drive but I can tell you that in the flesh this car is totally jaw dropping gorgeous, it has the 488 beat on looks and is up there with the F8, remember this car cost from 60k.
As this was a finished car I got to have a great look around and inside. This car was sat on cup tyres, diamond wheels and black calipers but I have to say it’s perfect spec, also note the yellow calipers are a slight different shade of yellow to Hethel yellow so those going yellow cars go black calipers.
The car seriously has no bad angles, I was looking under it (flat bottom) over it, around it and the exterior is just gorgeous, photos do the car no justice and neither does video, the car was just stunning. No panel gap or alignment issues so the new kit must be doing a good job and the LED lights look great. The doors soft close with a nice solid thud, the final seats say Lotus and the interior was very high quality, I could not find any issues, door bins carpeted, lots of storage areas including a decent space for carry ons behind the seats. Rear boot is a little larger than an Exige due to battery placement freeing up more space.
The alcantera steering wheel feels great, it’s not too thick and suggest the car will have plenty of feel, was not able to start the car but the dash looks great, infotainment screen too and there are knobs for important stuff like heaters etc. was hoping to hear the KEF audio but maybe another day for that.
No photos as this car goes to photo studio on Monday so I suspect we will see professional photos in coming days but it’s a car that looks awesome in photos and then you see it in the flesh and it some how just looks other level insanely good.
Both touring and sport chassis are Billstein dampers and both same ride height. All the factory photos of cars are NOT final ride height the final production yellow car I’ve seen today was the correct ride height been a final car and on the finger test the front end is a two finger gap from tyre to arch and the rear three finger gap. Needless to say ride height on this car looked spot on with great stance, similar to Porsche GT car.
Also the car will be reviewed on Top Gear, white VP car for driving bits and final dark verdant green for top gear studio, most of filming is done and this will air when Top Gear returns, can’t say much more other than expect a rave review.
The car literally looks so good it could drive terrible and people would still buy it but it is apparently obvious it will drive superb as Lotus have benchmarked against the Porsche 718 and Renault Alpine A110 for handling so it’s going to move the game on from Evora in positive way and the Evora was nothing short of amazing.
Huge thanks to Lotus and it’s fair to say they have a huge hit on their hands, I hope all goes smoothly for them and they have a huge success.
Some photos of reception and cars I was allowed to photo:
A long drive but we’ll worth it and now the next few months may not go so fast as the has really exceeded my expectations as a complete produxt finished to very high standards. No one should be worried!
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Sounds like an awesome day out 
Go to 34:20 in that video to see the final production car I’ve seen today. All that will be different is a final car will have black exhaust if ordered with upper black pack whereas this car had silver tips. The rest of this car is production quality and the video clip above does not do the car justice!
Oh and more good news the AMG car will keep the same gear ratios as found in A35/A45 which means really short ratios resulting is great performance and actually getting good use out of the paddles even at legal speeds.
So I’m tempted to order a base AMG car once available as well to try as I think with short gears and mapped in region of 430-460 horses it would be a pretty mental savage car, guess a test drive in an A45S would reveal as such.
So I’m tempted to order a base AMG car once available as well to try as I think with short gears and mapped in region of 430-460 horses it would be a pretty mental savage car, guess a test drive in an A45S would reveal as such.
Soldato
Should have let me know you were coming, would have popped over
Ah did not realise you worked or were close to Lotus buddy plus I was told to keep quiet at first but Scott said was fine to post about it today.
Soldato
Ah did not realise you worked or were close to Lotus buddy plus I was told to keep quiet at first but Scott said was fine to post about it today.
I still work from home most days (about 15 min away) but could have arranged to be in the office if I’d known
Good to hear you came away with a good impression of the place though, a lot has changed in the last couple of years
Real shame as it’s been a long time, Scott did not want me mentioning it until they were setup to allow other customers to visit just to prevent any potential issues. He was ok with me posting about going today as the official customer paid visits start from Monday.
So was just honouring what was requested but needless to say I’ve come away very impressed and the yellow BBC car blew me away in person, the team at Lotus have designed one of the best looking cars on the road and I’m not just saying that as biased customer it really is a stunning car, externally supercar looks and internally a car not recognisable as a Lotus as to me the interior looked great and felt very high quality and well put together.
would have love to taken photos of yellow car but Scott said no.
I must also note that most photos of the Emira make the proportions look off like short and fat but in person the car looks just so right proportion wise.
Exciting times ahead for Lotus and I suspect a lot of happy customers.