Emira Road Tests & Reviews

[Mctaff]

To be fair you sound pretty pissed!!

elise / evora great for you, and that’s excellent… but putting other peoples opinions down as shite just because you disagree is just disrespectful.

Can we all just play nice please?

 

Edited June 12 by Mctaff

[Eagle7]

1 hour ago, C8RKH said:

It's not upsetting for me at all to be honest @Eagle7and I have never said it is. Where do you get that from? Oh yes, you just made it up. Nice.

I also have no need to buy one of the cars I love as you put it, as I have two of them already! 

If you read my posts you'd see a reasonably balanced approach, unlike the fan boy shite that seems to suggest that everything before the Emira was quirky and crap or intolerable and not up to being a Daily Driver - utter bollocks.

To be honest, I'm surprised some people are not choking on that stuff as their heads seem to be (and have been since they placed their deposits) so far stuck up the exhaust pipes of the Emira. A car I must add that every one of them has not yet driven or experienced on the road! A car that already on here, after the first reviews, some people are thinking might not be for them ...

The fact is, whether YOU like it or not, the Emira has polarised opinions in the Lotus community. Is it a sufficient step forward for many current Lotus owners to consider - given it has replaced the Elise, Exige and Evora (we can argue about the semantics but as the only model available it needs to cater for all previous model owners desires/needs, as well as the newbies) - and does it give those owners what they are looking for? It's not just about the new owners, unless it is in your eyes.

I fully accept that Lotus is going in a different direction to what I am looking for and that the Emira in its current guise is not for me. That doesn't upset me either. However, if they do produce a more raw and focused Emira I have been clear I could be tempted. So again, I am not anywhere saying the Emira is a bad car or won't be a success.  Just a shame many on here have to decry the old cars to justify in their own minds the value of the Emira. Do they secretly know the Emira will not be as good so they feel the need to attack?

However, to be balanced, I do also explain what an "Emira for me" would need to look like and that I am sure they will be a success. So again, the only people who seem to be really denigrating Lotus cars are the ones who cannot see beyond the "shiny shiny" new. And just as with the crass Geely comment, without the Elise, Exige or the Evora there would have been nothing for Geely to buy, and I don't care what anyone else says, the technology from the first aluminium chassis in the Elise, refined in the Evora, is exactly what is underpinning the "all new" Emira.  The Emira has a lot to thank the "old crap quirky" cars for.

As for being hard to get in and out of - that's subjective. I'm a fat, old, inflexible bloke and seem to be manage just fine getting into and out of an Evora and Elise (well VX220, but same thing   ). Maybe the new owners are just softer and less willing to compromise. 

It's not me who says they are the best handling and driving Lotus cars ever - it's the journo's and road testers who consistently praise those aspects (whilst decrying the lack of creature comforts of course).  I do find it funny though how Lotus builds lightweight cars, that handle better than anything else, and go like stink - and the cars are labelled "quirky" and lacking.  Porsche, that generally build bloated cars for fat middle aged blokes to show at the golf club, adds lightness, rawness and takes away the creature comforts and their cars are hailed as for the "gods".  Given the first edition Emira is very much a fully loaded armchair model, I do find it surprising, we ll I don't really, that Evo chose to put it against the stripped out rawer Cayman GT4....   Go figure where the bias is and isn't.

So @Eagle7. I am not upset at, or about, the Emira in any way, shape or form. I am disappointed with it as a launch package, as I think Lotus has missed a trick. Again. But I am getting a bit sick and tired of the fan boy cry that "Emira is better than all the rest" and the "don't call my new baby toy ugly" responses.

So in my own style, I'll call it out - the hype and the bullshit and some of the biased crap - and fight for the underdog (the old cars) as fighting for the underdog is what drew me to lotus in the first place.  If that upsets you then fine, I really don't care, but I still hope the Emira gives you what you want and I hope you stay with it for some time.

 

Wow. You honestly can't read what you've posted and not see that you're upset, and you honestly believe your posts are "reasonably balanced".  Ok, have a nice day.

[jimichanga]

Quite something to see people here turning on the principles that made Lotus cars special. The principles are still correct and until physics changes, irrefutably so and yes the masses are wrong. It makes some here look pretty fickle just because they like the Emira styling that being heavier than a Cayman is all good. You have to wonder why some bothered putting up with quirky, poorly finished Lotus cars at all reading some posts.

The past ten years should have been a golden age for lightweight engineering, driven by the need for greater efficiency and Lotus could have been well placed to take advantage of an industry trend for once. But a few things have derailed it. One is the industry jump straight to full ev, two is the rise of the SUV which make people feel safe, on trend and high status. Third is that most people just don’t care about weight much like they don’t care about steering feel, changing gear, understeer, which wheels do what. So we have this excuse that weight gain is inevitable yet Alpine to their great credit has proven otherwise. So now have car journalists accustomed to 1.8ton BMW M3s astonished that a Caterham with 210bhp laps faster than a 630bhp Lambo STO track special around Anglesey (latest Evo). Now I find myself on a Lotus forum defending the principles that defined the company since day one.

I don’t dislike the Emira, it’s not for me in its current form, I’d genuinely rather have an Evora GT410 which should offend precisely no-one. If it helps, take that as more of a compliment for the Evora than a criticism of the Emira. What I dislike is brainless hype, unreasonable defensiveness and unfounded assumptions about the superiority of a new car from Lotus which quickly descends into negativity towards the older cars. But it is good at last to see some heated debate on this. If Lotus produce a car to compete with the Cayman that is actually heavier then there should be some objection especially on places like this. First we had the company ethos watered down by Dany Bahar to ‘every Lotus will be lightest in class’ now they really have turned their back on it and seem to be blaming it for all their financial difficulties. Why bother with a lighter Emira? That’s not what people want. What they want is porosity in the body panels which suggest light weight, works a charm in a 2.5 ton SUV too. Shouldn’t there at least have been a token ‘lightweight pack’ with carbon manually adjustable seats?

The Esprit is mentioned a lot but it remained the only 4 cyl car of its type until the late 90’s. Lotus finally succumbed to pressure from journalists to develop their own extremely light and compact V8 which famously weighed ‘220kg including ancillaries’. This was the same company at the same time who gave you different spring rates if you specd air con so let’s not claim Lotus didn’t care about weight with the Esprit. The S1 Esprit was sub 1000kg and the later Turbo with AC and full leather was still under 1200kg.

Long may the (respectful) debate continue.

Edited June 12 by jimichanga

[Cooper]

Back to brass tacks.  The Emira seemingly will be on Top Gear next Sunday 19th June.

[Eagle7]

37 minutes ago, jimichanga said:

Quite something to see people here turning on the principles that made Lotus cars special. The principles are still correct and until physics changes, irrefutably so and yes the masses are wrong. It makes some here look pretty fickle just because they like the Emira styling that being heavier than a Cayman is all good. You have to wonder why some bothered putting up with quirky, poorly finished Lotus cars at all reading some posts.

The past ten years should have been a golden age for lightweight engineering, driven by the need for greater efficiency and Lotus could have been well placed to take advantage of an industry trend for once. But a few things have derailed it. One is the industry jump straight to full ev, two is the rise of the SUV which make people feel safe, on trend and high status. Third is that most people just don’t care about weight much like they don’t care about steering feel, changing gear, understeer, which wheels do what. So we have this excuse that weight gain is inevitable yet Alpine to their great credit has proven otherwise. So now have car journalists accustomed to 1.8ton BMW M3s astonished that a Caterham with 210bhp laps faster than a 630bhp Lambo STO track special around Anglesey (latest Evo). Now I find myself on a Lotus forum defending the principles that defined the company since day one.

I don’t dislike the Emira, it’s not for me in its current form, I’d genuinely rather have an Evora GT410 which should offend precisely no-one. If it helps, take that as more of a compliment for the Evora than a criticism of the Emira. What I dislike is brainless hype, unreasonable defensiveness and unfounded assumptions about the superiority of a new car from Lotus which quickly descends into negativity towards the older cars. But it is good at last to see some heated debate on this. If Lotus produce a car to compete with the Cayman that is actually heavier then there should be some objection especially on places like this. First we had the company ethos watered down by Dany Bahar to ‘every Lotus will be lightest in class’ now they really have turned their back on it and seem to be blaming it for all their financial difficulties. Why bother with a lighter Emira? That’s not what people want. What they want is porosity in the body panels which suggest light weight, works a charm in a 2.5 ton SUV too. Shouldn’t there at least have been a token ‘lightweight pack’ with carbon manually adjustable seats?

The Esprit is mentioned a lot but it remained the only 4 cyl car of its type until the late 90’s. Lotus finally succumbed to pressure from journalists to develop their own extremely light and compact V8 which famously weighed ‘220kg including ancillaries’. This was the same company at the same time who gave you different spring rates if you specd air con so let’s not claim Lotus didn’t care about weight with the Esprit. The S1 Esprit was sub 1000kg and the later Turbo with AC and full leather was still under 1200kg.

Long may the (respectful) debate continue.

Well what if those principles that made Lotus cars special were responsible for the company going out of business?  Then what?  The 'masses' want something other than what you value, so that automatically makes them wrong?  And while you can defend your viewpoint, if they defend there's it's "brainless hype, unreasonable defensiveness and unfounded assumptions"?

Manufacturers aren't making cars heavier and heavier because they love weight, they're doing it because of government regulations requiring them to in order to meet those regulations.  Lotus wants to stay in business.  Without saying anything negative about the older cars, they weren't selling enough to keep the company in business.  The new Emira clearly is superior in that regard, but that doesn't stop you from speaking of it the way you lament others are speaking of the older cars.  Stand in the middle so you can see both sides equally, you'll get a better understanding of what's going on and why.

Lotus had to make a decision about how to stay in business long enough to get to the electric future, and they came up with the Emira.  Judging by the response, they made the right decision.  It's real easy for anybody to criticize and pretend things could have been done some other way, but hey; put together your proposal and approach Geely with it.  If it makes sense business-wise, they may decide to give you a billion dollars to put it into action.  In the meantime, the people who were in that position and had to choose what to do, made their decision.  It is what it is.

And for the record, I for one am NOT turning on the principles that made Lotus cars special.  Whether I like it or not, I have to recognize and acknowledge that those days are gone.  Blame the governments for that, not Lotus or the auto industry.

Edited June 12 by Eagle7

[EuropaSman]

Just seen the trail for next week's episode of BBC Top Gear after watching this week's edition. Looks like Harris is taking it around Anglesey by the looks of things (could be wrong). Will be an interesting watch.

[exeterjeep]

Saw that as well, it looks like the white 71 plate one that was shown in an earlier post. How complete the car is compared to the final one or the ones that Harry etc  tested - who knows.

If next weeks test show that the Emira is good then the interest in it could increase, due to the popularity of the program compared to some of the performance car mags?

[jimichanga]

I expect Flintoff will stick up for it while Chris Harris tears it to shreds unfortunately. Amazing how these new unobtainable GT3 Tourings keep appearing on his driveway though…

 

[pete]

How about wait and see

[EuropaSman]

Yes I'm definitely waiting to see. Harris did like the Exige V6 when he used to do reviews on YouTube and used to own an Exige S1, so he might surprise us.

[C8RKH]

13 hours ago, Eagle7 said:

Well what if those principles that made Lotus cars special were responsible for the company going out of business

It's BS statements like this that get me upset! You need to do some actual research.

It was not the engineering, nor design principles that almost killed Lotus. It was years of poor, nay, shit management and lack of investment from owners like GM.

They had a great, world beating product in the Elise, but some poor marketing decisions (like killing off of the base model) tipped prices too high, to over £40k for the base Elise and sales fell away, due to this and a lack of proper investment in the model.

Lotus should have been dead and buried in the early noughties just due to commercial/management ineptitude.

The fact that during his time Mike Kimberley and his team made and produced as fantastic a car sas the Evora is a miracle. But Mike moved on, laugh a minute became the new CEO and just about buried Lotus, only for the super account to strip everything to the bone to make Lotus look attractive enough for a sale.

To be clear, Geely did not buy Lotus for the cars. They bought it for the brand and the engineering. 

So less of the all the old cars/principles were shite rhetoric please, and a better more thoughtful, researched response, might result in people like me not ripping the piss out of you. The Esprit was light and as luxurious as anything else of its time. The Elite was sumptuous, whilst remaining light and responsive.

Compared to your crass generic statements, yes, I do believe I am more balanced and respectful in my responses!

[simonb]

TBH lotus would probably have been better off shutting up shop on car manufacture years ago and focussing on Lotus Engineering.  Happy they did not follow that (financially) sensible path.  Have high hopes for Geely as a parent from the way they have grown Volvo outside its comfort zone.

Do wonder how long Lotus will be an affordable brand (if a £70K sportscar is affordable) 

[Evotion]

Blimey. Ha, have to laugh. Such agendas here.

On this forum, we fall into 4 camps, and since I joined, people have stayed in them.

 

1. Die hard Lotus fans who will knock the Emira and Lotus at every chance - backhanded compliments at best

2. Those who have no great opinion either way and looking for information and to perhaps get caught up in the buzz

3. Those who have had a Lotus and see both the greatness and failings of Lotus 2.0 and both support, and sometimes, attack Lotus 2.0

4. New to Lotus - they can do no wrong - what a fantastic achievement 'fanboys'.

 

We all know who we are. I am in the last group and proud of it as I see this car in complete isolation from previous Lotus, and even other cars.

As soon as Lotus announced they were making their last ever ICE I immediately put 2 deposits down instead of getting a Huracan/Gt3/458 Spider and have since been blown away that a small company (yes, with new funding) has built a new factory, massively stepped up quality control (we saw this on the tour) and designed an exceptionally good looking car, which has come so close to matching a hugely backed and evolved car in the Cayman.

The fact we are all different is great!  I need my optimism tempered with reality, I know that.

However, those in Group 1 are not going to spoil my moment.

I have, and have had, some nice cars but I have never been so excited to get a new car in all my long life.

 

I am personally not frustrated with their comms and marketing BUT have been mentioning this to Lotus, in the interests of all, for ages. In the next couple of years (yes, I have the patience) I do have the confidence that things will improve dramatically. 

Back to reviews. Yes, I wanted them to be all glowing (newer ones may yet still be) but this does not undermine what a fantastic achievement this has been so far from a small UK (foreign backed) company full of passionate people.

 

[TomE]

12 hours ago, exeterjeep said:

Saw that as well, it looks like the white 71 plate one that was shown in an earlier post. How complete the car is compared to the final one or the ones that Harry etc  tested - who knows.

If next weeks test show that the Emira is good then the interest in it could increase, due to the popularity of the program compared to some of the performance car mags?

It was filmed a while ago at Anglesey.  Chris Harris posted a teaser pic back in March (below), so the car is a similar age to the white VP007 used for the TG magazine and online reviews at the time.  A shame it's a prototype and not a more recent nearly final pre-prod version, but filming schedules will have dictated it.

Also it was cold and wet when they filmed, so it'll be interesting to see if it's a Sports + Cup2s car or not.

12 hours ago, jimichanga said:

I expect Flintoff will stick up for it while Chris Harris tears it to shreds unfortunately. Amazing how these new unobtainable GT3 Tourings keep appearing on his driveway though…

 

I think he enjoyed it.  In the video trailer he says "I love it".

[exeterjeep]

Looks nice in white....

[jimichanga]

If quality really has been improved then that is what they should be shouting from the rooftops and focusing on in their marketing. Not waste money on wishy washy pretentious lifestyle crap. The car has succeeded in spite of the marketing which deserves no credit at all. That belongs almost entirely to Russell Carr and his team.

A proper revolution in quality is what will build the brand and finally shift brand perception. To reach people who couldn’t take Lotus seriously before or ever really consider buying one it does make some sense in axing all the previous cars and change the logo and have a clean break with the past. But You better offer something radically different to what has gone before with an ambition to not just match your rivals on quality but beat them. They need to tell people what they’ve done to improve quality, how they’ve done it and prove it. They won’t get another chance to really challenge preconceptions. Your typical Porsche owner will make up his mind within a few seconds about the interior of the Emira and he will be looking for things that feel cheap. For a proper cart blanche, line in the sand moment it probably would bar been better to launch with the AMG I4 and taken another year to make sure quality was the thing that all sounds the journos we’re writing about. ‘A Lotus with better build quality than a Cayman’ is a story that can shift perceptions. The take out so far is more like ‘Lotus have a go at the Cayman and get pretty close’. The familiarity of the V6 has not helped sell the message that ‘things are radically different now’. They only did it to get it into production faster under pressure from Geely perhaps, but I think the overall message now is ‘Lotus are trying bless them’ rather than ‘f me you won’t believe what Lotus are making these days’.

[mdavies]

1 hour ago, TomE said:

It was filmed a while ago at Anglesey.  Chris Harris posted a teaser pic back in March (below), so the car is a similar age to the white VP007 used for the TG magazine and online reviews at the time.  A shame it's a prototype and not a more recent nearly final pre-prod version, but filming schedules will have dictated it.

Also it was cold and wet when they filmed, so it'll be interesting to see if it's a Sports + Cup2s car or not.

So it seems that car is one of the prototypes sent out for the first set of reviews. Received pretty well in general.

But if so, and if the car is anything other than a production version as to be supplied to those paying up for one, whatever Chris Harris says or does not say is, at best, irrelevant.

I assume that adequately emphasised warnings and caveats will be given about the car. Anything other, and Lotus's marketing and PR will be exposed to serious criticism. Given the widespread viewing of Top Gear, including by some not necessarily familar with the full "Emira picture", there could then be accusations of being mislead, with regrettable consequences.

 

Edited June 13 by mdavies

[TomE]

You'd hope TG would want to be saying something like "we're really lucky to have the chance to be one of the first outside Lotus to drive the Emira and this is a prototype nearing finalisation..." or similar.  We'll see.

[Evotion]

Judging by the TG post about the steering wheel I fear another hatchet job. 😩

[Bibs]

The mag and TV show are pretty much separate entities.

[mdavies]

52 minutes ago, TomE said:

.......a prototype nearing finalisation..."

Tom, I'm not a lawer (though worked closely with litigation ones at times, on big cases) but IMO that is inadequate as a "warning" to those potentially liable to misinterpret whatever CH says about the car and its performance.

In isolation, the phrase is entirely open to interpretation.  It could equally well be interpreted as implying that a production version might be an improvement on that prototype as that a version you could actually buy could be degraded from what CH has experienced and commented on.

Hence it fails as a warning.

Now I'll await the programme!

Edited June 13 by mdavies

[Eagle7]

4 hours ago, C8RKH said:

It's BS statements like this that get me upset! You need to do some actual research.

It was not the engineering, nor design principles that almost killed Lotus. It was years of poor, nay, shit management and lack of investment from owners like GM.

They had a great, world beating product in the Elise, but some poor marketing decisions (like killing off of the base model) tipped prices too high, to over £40k for the base Elise and sales fell away, due to this and a lack of proper investment in the model.

Lotus should have been dead and buried in the early noughties just due to commercial/management ineptitude.

The fact that during his time Mike Kimberley and his team made and produced as fantastic a car sas the Evora is a miracle. But Mike moved on, laugh a minute became the new CEO and just about buried Lotus, only for the super account to strip everything to the bone to make Lotus look attractive enough for a sale.

To be clear, Geely did not buy Lotus for the cars. They bought it for the brand and the engineering. 

So less of the all the old cars/principles were shite rhetoric please, and a better more thoughtful, researched response, might result in people like me not ripping the piss out of you. The Esprit was light and as luxurious as anything else of its time. The Elite was sumptuous, whilst remaining light and responsive.

Compared to your crass generic statements, yes, I do believe I am more balanced and respectful in my responses!

You're upset because you see what you want to see so you can be upset.  Nowhere am I saying previous Lotus cars or principles were "shite" as you say.  And you haven't ripped anything out of me, you vastly over-estimate your importance and abilities. 

Colin Chapman himself couldn't make his automobile company profitable.  He himself recognized that he needed to change from the Elite, Elan, Europa and upgrade his cars to be more than just minimalist track cars that were street legal.  The Elan was a terrific little car, albeit with some issues which owners were willing to deal with because they loved the car otherwise.  The Esprit was a beautiful car.  After he passed away, the company struggled and continued to.  The Elise was a beautiful little car, but the problem is with all those small, light cars is they were not mass market cars.  They were specialty cars for a special but very small segment of the customer base, and unfortunately that base isn't profitable enough to stay in business, management issues or not.  Statements some make like: "I've had my Lotus (whatever) for the past 15 years and I love it" is fantastic as a statement about the car, but terrible for business.  In order to stay in business, you need more than your customer buying one car every 15 years.  You need a continuous stream of buyers every year, and enough of them to stay in business.  The old cars, as nice as they were for the specialty segment that loved them, just weren't enough.

Yes of course Geely did not buy Lotus for the cars, that's quite obvious, and why Lotus had to discontinue everything they were making.... because IT WASN'T AND ISN'T PROFITABLE.  NOT viable as a philosophy for BUSINESS.  There's nothing in that statement that slights the products themselves for what they were; they just weren't marketable enough to be able to work to stay in business.  You think it's solely about management, yet the same management of the last 4 years comes out with a new car that IS marketable for the bigger marketplace, and suddenly they have more orders in 12 months than sales for the Evora in the last 12 YEARS.  That's the result of recognizing that the very small market segment of people Lotus had struggled to stay in business catering to, needed to be expanded to include more than that segment.  That original small segment is now wearing sackcloth and ashes lamenting the change, but it had to be for Lotus to stay in business.

Well yeah Geely bought Lotus for the brand and engineering; it certainly wasn't for their highly profitable sales portfolio.

My posts are in fact thoughtful and researched, it's just that you are more emotional about this change than you want to admit, and you're seeing things through that lens that you don't realize is coloring your perception of what's being said and why.

The Elite was beautiful; didn't sell enough.  It had a 6 year run and sold about 1,000 cars total.  Then the automotive world really became very aware of Lotus when Jim Clark and Graham Hill were winning races with Colin's cars, built with his design principles and philosophy.  They continued to be aware when Collin's F1 cars kept winning F1 championships into the 1970's.  The non-automotive world became aware of Lotus because Emma Peel drove an Elan in The Avengers television show; because Patrick McGoohan drove a Lotus 7 in The Prisoner; because it became a James Bond car in The Spy Who Loved Me.  People knew about Lotus.

The Elan was produced for 12 years, and sold about 11,000 cars in total.  60 years later at the end of its run, the Evora sells about 6,000 cars total after a 12 year run.  Meanwhile GM, Ford, etc. were outselling Lotus hundreds of thousands to one each year because they understood where the money was.  It wasn't because of any defects in Chapman's engineering or design principles.  It was because those principles by themselves as a strict philosophy don't produce a car that appeals to the mass market, where the money is.

It's all now water under the bridge.  The old era is coming to an end, along with the times where you could make a car that weighs less than a ton and legally sell it.  The Emira is a great move on the part of Lotus, because it shows they've adjusted and are now able to reach enough of the market segment where the money is, to stay in business.  I recognize and applaud them for that.  And on that note, I'm done with this conversation.

[Beady]

There are merits in all the various debates above.

the emira has the wow factor in looks, and there was a hope that it would blow the competition away in the driving department too. That just hasn’t happened - it seems to be good, very good but not quite enough to be universally acclaimed as the best,  and I think that’s why quite a few are disappointed.

i put myself in section 3 of Evotions list and I will almost certainly still buy it but I can recognise its shortfalls.

I bought an Evora launch edition which came out to probably better reviews than the Emira but a global financial downturn at the time surely had a big impact in sales at the time and it never recovered.

I suspect many will drop out of deposits but I am pretty confident that there will be many new deposits to replace them.

in reality most sports car buyers are not real enthusiasts otherwise ‘old lotus’ would have been profitable enough.

most want something that looks good and handles well enough and makes the neighbours think they are doing well for themselves - hence to date they have largely bought a porker.

Those buyers are unlikely to frequent these forums but I am sure the emira fits many of their needs on looks alone.

 

[MJON]

6 hours ago, jimichanga said:

If quality really has been improved then that is what they should be shouting from the rooftops and focusing on in their marketing. Not waste money on wishy washy pretentious lifestyle crap. The car has succeeded in spite of the marketing which deserves no credit at all. That belongs almost entirely to Russell Carr and his team.

A proper revolution in quality is what will build the brand and finally shift brand perception. To reach people who couldn’t take Lotus seriously before or ever really consider buying one it does make some sense in axing all the previous cars and change the logo and have a clean break with the past. But You better offer something radically different to what has gone before with an ambition to not just match your rivals on quality but beat them. They need to tell people what they’ve done to improve quality, how they’ve done it and prove it. They won’t get another chance to really challenge preconceptions. Your typical Porsche owner will make up his mind within a few seconds about the interior of the Emira and he will be looking for things that feel cheap. For a proper cart blanche, line in the sand moment it probably would bar been better to launch with the AMG I4 and taken another year to make sure quality was the thing that all sounds the journos we’re writing about. ‘A Lotus with better build quality than a Cayman’ is a story that can shift perceptions. The take out so far is more like ‘Lotus have a go at the Cayman and get pretty close’. The familiarity of the V6 has not helped sell the message that ‘things are radically different now’. They only did it to get it into production faster under pressure from Geely perhaps, but I think the overall message now is ‘Lotus are trying bless them’ rather than ‘f me you won’t believe what Lotus are making these days’.

I wish them well but it’s never going to have better build quality than Porsche, just a different league when it comes to production and assembly process.

[Eagle7]

45 minutes ago, Beady said:

There are merits in all the various debates above.

the emira has the wow factor in looks, and there was a hope that it would blow the competition away in the driving department too. That just hasn’t happened - it seems to be good, very good but not quite enough to be universally acclaimed as the best,  and I think that’s why quite a few are disappointed.

i put myself in section 3 of Evotions list and I will almost certainly still buy it but I can recognise its shortfalls.

I bought an Evora launch edition which came out to probably better reviews than the Emira but a global financial downturn at the time surely had a big impact in sales at the time and it never recovered.

I suspect many will drop out of deposits but I am pretty confident that there will be many new deposits to replace them.

in reality most sports car buyers are not real enthusiasts otherwise ‘old lotus’ would have been profitable enough.

most want something that looks good and handles well enough and makes the neighbours think they are doing well for themselves - hence to date they have largely bought a porker.

Those buyers are unlikely to frequent these forums but I am sure the emira fits many of their needs on looks alone.

 

Well I think there's an important difference between a sports car buyer, and what's called a "real enthusiast".  A sports car buyer isn't necessarily a track car buyer.  They want the looks, performance and fun of a sports car, but not at the expense of reasonable comfort and drivability on the street.  This includes NVH.  They are an enthusiast, just not a track enthusiast.  Track enthusiasts consider themselves "real" enthusiasts, which is a bit of a conceit in my opinion.  A track enthusiast wants track performance which means certain things like power and handling take priority over everything else.  They're okay with minimalist comforts and NVH because they want to blast around on a track.

Track enthusiasts are a very small segment of the market.  Sports car enthusiasts are a much bigger segment, and that's where Lotus needs to be aiming at like they are with the Emira.  The orders for the Emira show the wisdom of that approach as a business decision.