LOTUS ELITE IS BORN AGAIN
Lotus Elite is built-in afresh We yield the wraps off British firm’s amazing new four-seat coupé, which is set to yield a starring role at the Paris Motor Show
LOTUS is aback – and actuality are the pictures to prove it. This beauteous supercar is the aboriginal of an all-new Lotus sports car range, which will seek to put the acclaimed Norfolk-based close on top of the apple again.
Called the Elite, it will accomplish its admission at the Paris Motor Show next week, abutting by a host of added new models, including what is anticipation to be a beginning Esprit. Â
Resurrecting a acclaimed Lotus brand from the Seventies, the new Elite is, like its predecessor, a four-seater, front-engine, rear-wheel-drive coupé. But that’s area the similarities end.
The new archetypal has a folding hard-top roof and sources ability from a 5.0-litre V8 from engine accomplice Toyota which will be either supercharged or turbocharged. Priced at £115,000, it will ambition the Ferrari California if it goes on auction in 2014.
The Elite gives us our aboriginal glimpse of the maker’s new ‘face’ – a attending that will be aggregate with the blow of the line-up. As you can see, the foreground end appearance an colossal axial grille, belted by abbreviate LED headlights and accompanying lower air intakes.
Incredibly, afflatus has appear from the aboriginal Seven. “The absolute two-dimensional grille [on the Evora and Elise] is not alive enough. We charge added carve and dignity, so we looked at the Seven – the way the grille formed with the headlights on the wings,” said arch artist Donato Coco.
The shark-like mouth, affecting physique slashes and aggressive, angular curve amalgamate to aftermath a striking-looking machine. The Elite is arranged with the latest technology, too. It will get a twin-clutch semi-automatic ’box and amalgam drive, featuring electric motors and a front-mounted F1-style Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS), which gives an added 50bhp if the disciplinarian activates a ‘boost’ button on the council wheel. Although it will counterbalance 1,650kg, Lotus claims the Elite will be the lightest in its class. Aluminium and carbon fibre, forth with the firm’s capricious car architectonics anatomy – complete with double-wishbone abeyance – will feature. Together with amalgam technology, the aggregation claims emissions of 215g/km. By comparison, the Ferrari California emits 305g/km.
Under the bonnet, Lotus will absolutely re-engineer the Toyota unit, abacus a supercharger or turbocharger to accord it added thrust. Two tune options will be accessible – the ‘standard’ car, which produces 542bhp, and a 612bhp ‘R’ version. Lotus claims that the Elite will be able to dart from 0-60mph in about 3.5 seconds. Expect a top acceleration of 195mph. Â
Inside, the newcomer will avowal council caster gearshifters and a ample axial ‘human apparatus interface’ awning through which the car’s functions are controlled. Â
“There will consistently be those who say that Lotus should stick to baby sports cars,” said Lotus bang-up Dany Bahar. “But we didn’t yield the accommodation to architecture the Elite lightly. In the past, the 2+2 bazaar has been actual acknowledged for us, and now the Elite raises the criterion college still.”
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