| 777 | Date: Thursday, 28 Oct 2010, 18.06 | Message # 1 |
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| You might not expect a sports car with a Toyota V6 engine and a mere 280 horsepower to challenge the likes of Porsches and Corvettes. But the Lotus Evora -- the first all-new Lotus in 15 years -- proves again that Lotus’ lighter-is-better philosophy pays huge dividends on the road or the racetrack.
With an aluminum chassis that weighs a mere 440 pounds, and tipping the scales at barely 3,000 pounds overall, the two-plus-two Evora weighs about 250 pounds less than a comparable Porsche 911 or Corvette, and 750 less than the burly, all-wheel-drive Nissan GT-R. And while many of those cars will pull away from the Lotus in a straight line, they’ll be toast the minute the road starts to twist and bend. The Evora’s midengine, 3.5-liter V6 sends it from zero to 60 mph in a reasonably swift 4.8 seconds, but the Evora’s supercar levels of steering feel and cornering grip are what make it so electrifying to drive. Try this one: Lotus says the Evora’s chassis is fully 50 percent stiffer than a Ferrari F430’s, another key to its uncanny handling. The Evora also pulls nearly 1.25 G’s of cornering force around turns, topping most supercars that cost $250,000 or more. In contrast, a well-optioned Evora will set you back about $85,000. On public roads in New York’s Hudson Valley, I couldn’t find a turn that could truly challenge the Evora’s awesome handling capabilities.
To find that challenge, I drove a laser-blue Evora with a friend to Monticello Motor Club near the Catskills region. But what appeared to be a bummer – the skies opened up and doused the track – turned out to be telling. Circling the 4.1-mile road course as the rain pelted down, the Evora was ridiculously sure-footed, hurtling to 135 mph on the back straight and slicing through turns with steely precision.
And compared with its spine-crunching, go-kart siblings, the Exige hardtop and Elise convertible -- the latter the basis for the electric Tesla Roadster -- the wider and 22-inch-longer Evora is a sports car you could happily drive every day. As with the Porsche 911, there are toddler-sized jump seats in back. But the real advantage is enough back-seat space for a pair of large suitcases, two sets of golf clubs, grocery bags, you name it. There’s also a surprisingly generous trunk for a midengine car, roughly the size of a Mazda Miata’s.
The other Evora edge is exotic styling and exclusivity. People on the street routinely guessed that the Evora cost $125,000 or more, yet the Evora actually starts below 75 grand. Lotus will build just 2,000 worldwide this year, with only about 700 of those bound for the States. Pull into any posh valet line, and the attendants will swiftly move the Lotus up front with the Ferraris and Bentleys, leaving drivers of garden-variety Porsches and 'Vettes to wait their turn.
The Lotus’ biggest sore thumb is its 6-speed manual shifter, which features overly long throws and a rubbery, vague action. For a company so focused on high-performance engineering, the shifter is out of character. And while the Evora proves that lightness and balance are still more fun than all-conquering horsepower, I’ll confess that I wanted just a skosh more grunt, torque and lusty sound. That’s exactly what’s coming, with Lotus planning to unveil a supercharged Evora S at the upcoming auto show in Paris. That Evora S will saddle 70 more horses, for a total of 350. That will give the Evora a better power-to-weight ratio than a Porsche 911 S. And that’s where a car this finely turned and exotic-looking needs to be.
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