WORTH THE WEIGHT?

Marking the end of one era and the beginning of another for Lotus, the Emira is claimed to be a sports car for the masses as well as for the purists, despite pushing one and a half tonnes in weight. Steve Cropley sees for himself in Hethel's first new series-production car since 2009

“We'll do a few laps in the electrical car," says Gavan Kershaw, standing beside a Lotus Emira prototype outside Lotus's impressive new Hethel HQ. It's an odd-looking machine - familiar in shape and basically white, but covered in random colour flashes as if it recently lost a high-speed argument with a random salvo of paintballs.

This word 'electrical' is unexpected. Every shred of Emira publicity has so far made it clear that while Lotus is indeed readying an all-new pure-electric sports car for launch in the mid-2020s, this Emira is very much Hethel's last tilt at "celebrating the glories of combustion”. It isn't even a hybrid.

The electrical explanation turns out to be undramatic. Lotus currently has around 35 Emira prototypes engaged in final testing in locations all over the world, before production cars start flowing in time for a launch next spring. This one belongs to the team in charge of electrical architecture, but Kershaw, the company's pre-eminent driver and guardian of ‘Lotusness' (official title: director of vehicle attributes and product integrity) has commandeered it for an hour to show us how it goes on the Hethel test track. There's no question of a test drive just yet, but I know riding with Kershaw will in some ways be even more instructive.