The New Lotus Evora

Lotus has achieved since the Elise was born 13 years ago and is the start of our bold five year strategic business plan; a plan which includes the introduction of three new cars, as well as advanced new technologies to many more markets around the world.

Designed for greater day-to-day driveability and positioned above the Elise, Exige S and Europa models, the new Evora will hold more luxury comforts in a larger chassis. Designed with detail, elegance, and passion, this future car reflects a blend of seamless design cues, technological excellence, and excellent driving dynamics.

Underpinned by Lotus's Versatile Vehicle Architecture technology, offering an adaptable, extremely strong, stiff and lightweight chassis, the Evora weighs just 1350kg. With a 3.5 litre V6 engine, it's capable of 0-100 km/h in just five seconds. Under this design, the roof and body panels are stress-bearing and attached directly to the chassis helping the Evora achieve its modest 1,350kg kerb weight.

Front and mid engine installations have been considered, as well as hybrid and Electric Vehicle (EV) applications. Front tyres are 225/40 ZR 18 and the rears are 255/35 ZR 19, with Yokohama having supplied a rubber unique to Lotus for this application. Stopping ability is catered for by ventilated discs front and rear, 350 mm and 332 mm in diameter respectively.

Lotus Traction Control - the Switchable Lotus Traction Control (LTC) system has been developed simultaneously with the ABS and works through the engine management system to reduce power when required to maintain traction. Unlike many traction control systems, LTC has been tuned to complement the skills of the driver without taking over.

During preliminary testing around the famous N rburgring race track, the Lotus chassis engineers report that it is extremely agile and great fun to drive - even when clad with the full development disguise that hid the beautiful lines from the prying motor-industry paparazzi.

Performance enhancements are available through a Sport pack that boosts the Evora's throttle response and redline and add a sports traction-control mode, a sports diffuser, a titanium exhaust, cross-drilled brake discs and additional oil cooler. Perhaps we'll see a few more refinements in future Lotus models, as the order book already looks like a who's who of celebrity car buffs? Performance will be scintillating with the 0-62mph sprint dispatched in around five seconds and a top speed of 160mph. But if that's not enough to get your pulse racing don't worry - rumours suggest that as well as the convertible variant, a more powerful supercharged version is under development also.

Lotus proudly notes the trunk is large enough to swallow a set of golf clubs, which seems to be the industry's universal standard for defining trunk space. Lotus says that the Evora can easily accommodate two 6ft 5in tall American males in the front seats. The Evora will be available as a 2 and 4 seater sports car.

Can't wait to test drive the new Lotus Evora? Well if you can't wait until the launch in April 2009, take a virtual test drive with Gran Turismo. Lotus has a long-standing relationship with Polyphony, the game's Japanese developer, with Lotus cars appearing in each release of the Bafta award-winning Gran Turismo series. Now, thanks to the new title's unprecedented realism (enabled by the ultra-powerful PlayStation3 system), Gran Turismo drivers will find their virtual ride in the new Lotus Evora to be startlingly similar to the real thing giving Lotus fans a taster of what to expect before the full sized Evora is available to test-drive for real in Spring 2009.



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