It's raining in Norway. Not a gentle patter, either, more a deluge wrapped in a downpour, the sweet smell of petrichor swamped by the sheer volume of water hosing out of the sky. The forest holds a gloomy edge, sweating myth and looking like a thousand dark bedtime stories, suspicious, soggy huddles of spruce and alder plotting with the Norwegian pines. And yet the roads are good. Incredible, even. Two lanes of scarred tarmac that shift and loop through the landscape following the contours of the lakes, rising and falling like a breath. Apart from the disconcerting drag of the pools of standing water, driving doesn't get much better than this - a Lotus doing what it was born to do - attack an interesting, twisty road with vim, engaging and fun.
Except that this isn't your usual Lotus. It's 2.5 tonnes of electric SUV wearing a Lotus badge, potentially a sheep in wolf's clothing, big and yellow enough to look like someone chipped off a shard of sun and plonked it down on a road somewhere outside Oslo. Recalibration is needed. This is the Lotus Eletre. It is not what we're used to.
Of course, according to the court of public opinion, the Lotus Eletre should not exist. Mainly because it's not a sports car. Worse than that, it's an SUV, is electric and tech heavy, and produced in Wuhan, China instead of in the UK in Hethel, Norfolk. It is therefore, according to some sections of the intellectual bin fire that is social media, the antichrist with 22-inch wheels.
But ignore all that for a second. Because the Eletre may be a big, fat electric SUV that has as much to do with traditional Lotus values as a canoe has to a cruise ship, but it still somehow has Lotus in there somewhere. Maybe it's the steering - direct, chatty, quick.
ãã®èšäºã¯ BBC Top Gear UK ã® September 2023 çã«æ²èŒãããŠããŸãã
7 æ¥éã® Magzter GOLD ç¡æãã©ã€ã¢ã«ãéå§ããŠãäœåãã®å³éžããããã¬ãã¢ã ã¹ããŒãªãŒã9,000 以äžã®éèªãæ°èã«ã¢ã¯ã»ã¹ããŠãã ããã
ãã§ã«è³Œèªè ã§ã ?  ãµã€ã³ã€ã³
ãã®èšäºã¯ BBC Top Gear UK ã® September 2023 çã«æ²èŒãããŠããŸãã
7 æ¥éã® Magzter GOLD ç¡æãã©ã€ã¢ã«ãéå§ããŠãäœåãã®å³éžããããã¬ãã¢ã ã¹ããŒãªãŒã9,000 以äžã®éèªãæ°èã«ã¢ã¯ã»ã¹ããŠãã ããã
ãã§ã«è³Œèªè ã§ã? ãµã€ã³ã€ã³
HEAD TO HEAD VANTAGE vs 911 TURBO
For as long as we can remember the Porsche 911 has been the default best sports car money can buy. Does the new Aston Vantage represent a changing of the guard?
BOSS LEVEL:PART TWO
In a world exclusive, three makers of the world's most powerful hypercars are cordially invited... to drive each other's creations
THE THEORY 0F EVOLUTION
Ridged bladder seats, an inflating steering wheel and an AI track day coach... has Lotus hit on the supercar's future, or gone mad?
Koenigsegg Jesko Attack
The Jesko Attack drives like a conventional supercar. Brakes like one, turns like one, grips like one. But it doesn't accelerate like one.
STIC LAPS are back!
It's a 1.75-mile figure of eight on an old Canadian Air Force base just south of Guildford. Hardly Monza, or the Mulsanne straight, and never in a million years - you'd think a place that would become one of the most sought after performance benchmarks in the motoring world.
URBAN OUTWITTERS
Does the solution to city motoring lie in designs from the past with powertrains from the future? TopGear goes in search of answers... at rush hour
FUTURE FERRARIS
If you thought Ferrar's past was colourful, wait until you see what it's cooking up next. The future's bright, the future's rosso
DIRTY DOZEN
Ferrari's new super GT makes no secrets about what's under the bonnet, but can it swallow five countries in just a few hours? Better get on with it...
MYTH BUSTER
\"ADAPTIVE DAMPERS ALWAYS NEED TO ADAPT\"
The S2000 from a parallel universe
Meet Evasive Motorsportsâ Honda S2000R, the car the Japanese firm should have built itself