LOTUS EMIRA

A LIGHT TONIC YOU CAN TAKE DAILY

- ANGUS MACKENZIE

Model Lotus Emira V6

Engine 3456cc V6 (900), dohc, 24v, s/c

Max power 298kW @ 6600rpm

Max torque 420Nm @ 3200rpm

Transmission 6-speed manual

Weight 1480kg

0-100km/h 4.3sec (claimed)

Economy 8.8L/100km

Price $180,000 (estimated)

On sale 2023

THE ELISE is the reason Lotus is here today. Launched in 1996 when Lotus was owned by Italian businessman Romano Artioli and fighting for its life, the Elise reintroduced the world to the idea of a pure, ultra-light, driver-focused sports car, the sort of sports car Lotus founder Colin Chapman himself might have conceived.

The Elise may have saved Lotus, but it – and the closely-related Exige and Evora variants – also typecast Britain’s famously iconoclastic carmaker. For the best part of 30 years Lotus cars have been regarded as brilliant to drive, but spartan and cramped; cars that are best kept in the garage for sunny days when you have nowhere to go, and all day to get there.

The Lotus Emira V6 changes all that. The mid-engine Emira is designed to move Lotus out of the hardcore, hair-shirt enthusiast milieu of the Elise and its barely more hospitable Exige and Evora variants, and into the everyday, everydriver premium sports car segment dominated by Porsche’s Cayman.