Lotus will launch yet more new cars and concepts at the Frankfurt Motor Show including what it calls one of its fastest ever road cars.
The British sports car firm will launch THREE new models at Frankfurt and is keeping two of them under wraps until the day of the show. One is described simply as being ‘one of the quickest road cars Lotus has ever built’.
The other is a new motorsport car, on top of Lotus’ activities in F1, GT racing, Indycar and so on. The new model intriguingly ‘marks the return of Lotus to another adrenalin filled motorsport discipline’.
Lotus’ third new car will be a supercharged Elise S, replacing the old Elise SC. This will use a 220hp 1.8-litre engine and both emit less CO2 and be more fuel-efficient than the old supercharged Elise.
Lotus will also show the special edition 444hp Evora GTE pictured above. The firm was originally restricting this model, the most powerful Lotus road car ever, to the Asian market. Now, it is taking it into more markets.
The use of carbon fibre for front and rear bumpers, rear wing, doors and other modifications means the Evora GTE is 105kg lighter than the standard Evora. Combined with so much power, this means performance from the Evora GTE is going to be exceptional.
Lotus will showcase two new automatic gearbox options for its current models too, one for the Elise and one for the Evora S.
The Elise S 1.6 is to get an automated manual gearbox, called SPS or Serial Precision Shift. This uses robotic control to provide clutchless gearchanges, operated via paddles fixed to the steering column.
The new gearbox is an eye-opening addition to the ageing Elise line-up, and presumably is being used to test technology for future production models.
Lotus is also offering its IPS Intelligent Precision Shift technology on the 350hp Evora S. The extension of the automatic gearbox to the supercharged Evora S blends performance with practicality and means every current Lotus production car is now available with a self-shifting gearbox.
As for the rest of the new Lotus models, we will have to wait until the day of the Frankfurt Motor Show. All Lotus is saying is that it will all represent ‘more Lotus than ever’. What are YOUR guesses for what Lotus has up its sleeve?
