| Tuesday, July 22, 2008 |
14:52 - A lotta Loti
http://www.lotusevora.com/
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Geez, who saw this coming? Lotus is unveiling three new models, starting with a new 2+2, the Evora:
This after four years of being essentially a one-model company—just the Elise and Exige, which are for all intents and purposes the same thing, and the Europa, which is about as distinct from the Elise as the Mini Clubman is from the Cooper. Looks like all those Elises that the Silicon Valley and New York markets have been snapping up have driven Lotus to an Apple-like level of confidence—the kind that spurs them to make a play for markets they'd all but abandoned.
Man, that's a sexy interior.
And it's got that two-intersecting-greenhouse-contour-lines thing from the Ferrari 575 Zagato, which I've never been a particular fan of, but it works pretty well here—and feels at home with the Elise-evolution tail treatment and front cowl. Very, very nice-looking car.
Plus it comes with a 6-speed manual. Exclusively. Take that, industry trends!
(It's funny, though: just as I'd figured Apple had run out of big cats to name operating systems after before going the "Snow Leopard" route, I was sure Lotus had no more "E" words to work with in either English or French, yet I was somehow sure they'd dig up some word out of left field that I'd never heard of before. But no, they went the Shadowy-Tech-Company-Conglomerate route and made up their own word, à la Acura or Elantra. Somehow I didn't foresee them doing that. But, hey, it could have been worse—I was ready to point and laugh at the upcoming Lotus Eclair.)
And to think I'd all but considered Lotus to be irrelevant a few years ago, and bought my Esprit at least partially because it was a relic of a nameplate that I thought would soon be just a memory. Hell, this might mean they'll still be around to make spare parts for a while yet. To say nothing of those two further models they've got in the pipeline, one of which is the new Esprit, something I'd all but dismissed as wishful thinking. I mean, how many of these kinds of dreams really do come true?
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Brian Tiemann
