► Lotus Emira prototype tested on track► ‘About 80% representative’ of the final car
► It already feels stellar to drive
Moments like this don’t come around all that often. Just us, an empty test track and Lotus’s last ever combustion-engined sports car, the Emira.
A Lotus Emira road test already?
This is not the final, production-spec Lotus Emira first drive review. This is an early-doors taste of a validation prototype, one of several hard-working cars destined for a life testing and fine-tuning various systems (in this car’s case ADAS, advanced driver-assistance systems). As you read this, final tooling prototypes will have been down the production line ahead of pre-production vehicles. Final customer cars will be in production in spring, and ready for first deliveries in June 2022.
We’re driving the car on the Lotus factory test circuit at Hethel, and can’t yet tell you how it feels on the road. The good news is, based on how it feels on the track, it’s shaping up to be an emphatically brilliant drive.
How close is this car to production-spec?
Lotus describes this particular car as ‘about 80 per cent’ representative of the production-spec Emira. It’s only recently been built; barely run-in. Chassis tune and steering feel aren’t production-spec, and nor are various other aspects. Lotus is also at pains to point out that includes the cabin quality: the plastics are first pressings, the finish isn’t final. But it honestly already feels pretty good to me.
How does the interior compare to past Lotus models – and to rivals?
First of all, it’s easier to get in and out than previous Lotus sports cars. Like a Porsche Cayman, it’s simplicity itself to duck your head and shoulder under the arcing roofline and drop your torso into the seat. The trickier thing, if you have long legs, is not putting a footprint on the junction between the dash and the sill as you lift your right foot in. But it’s easier than the Evora, the car the Emira indirectly replaces.
You sit low, although not quite as low as I’d like on this car’s plump seat squab, the design of which is still being finalised – in fact, this prototype has different left and right seats as Lotus mulls iterations. It will get lower for production. Ahead are two digital screens: one for the instrument panel, which chameleons between displays in the three driving modes (Tour, Sport and Track); and a touchscreen in the centre of the dash. The latter isn’t fully up and running here, although you can hook your phone up to the standard-fit Apple CarPlay. Graphics on both screens are clean, minimal, modern: very Lotus.
Lotus has taken care to avoid putting all controls on the touchscreen, splitting functions between physical and touch controls (including, happily, air-con and audio controls you can work without taking your eyes off the road/track).
One downside: having switchgear on the steering wheel spokes has mean they need to be chunky and it’s not possible to grasp them quite as easily as in previous Lotus models, which is a shame. But the rest of the wheel’s rim is slim, and its vaguely octagonal shape looks great.
A handily deep storage fissure is built into the centre console under the armrest, and there’s space for a smartphone ahead of the gearlever (or you can pop it into the dogbone-shaped cupholders). Since there’s no 2+2 option for the Emira, unlike the Evora, there’s a useful amount of space behind the seats to squash luggage into, as well as a reasonable rear boot. (Crucial since, due to the cab-forward design and aero, cooling and crash structure demands up front, there’s no front boot.)
If the interior all sounds rather grown-up, it is. It’s less striking than the all-aluminium environs of an Elise – less of a sports-car cockpit, more of a coupe cabin – but that’s not a problem. If it’s a touch less evocative than an Elise, it’s about 500 per cent more practical and I’d much rather face a long journey in an Emira than an Evora. Or an Alpine, for that matter. Having driven an A110 from the south of France back to the UK after CAR’s 2018 Sports Car Giant Test, that car does suffer from a lack of places to put things in the cabin, and even a volume control for the passenger. The Emira’s ergonomics and switchgear are more comprehensive, and comprehensively thought-through.
The most important question: how does it feel to drive?
Heavy-ish clutch to the floor, aluminium gearlever into first. This is the manual version of the supercharged V6; the inline-four AMG turbo option is still in development, with prototypes in-build currently, and will be auto only. (An auto option will also be available for the V6.)
The manual’s the same ‘box seen in Evora and Exige, and it’s still one you must be patient with. A transverse gearbox rated for 325lb ft of torque, it’s a necessarily heavy-duty transmission which doesn’t like to be hurried. But the satisfaction of getting a shift right – up or down – is immense. (The shift-action will get lighter in the production car, particularly across the gate.)
As is the satisfaction of driving the Emira in general. Direction changes? Instantaneous; there’s roll, but like the best sports cars it’s always controlled, and the movement helps you feel what’s going on. It’s an aid to getting your bearings rather than an impediment. Steering? Still hydraulically assisted. This might be an ADAS prototype, to test systems such as lane-departure warning and blind-spot information, but the Emira won’t include self-steering lane-keeping. When a car steers this well, you want to have it all to yourself.
Steering feel is as subjective a topic as they come, but to me this car doesn’t feel quite as communicative as an Evora’s. Regardless, it’s still lovely, and beautifully linear. And not production spec – Lotus says it will be slightly lighter and different in feel for production. Looking ahead, the low nose disappears immediately into thin air, leaving the twin humps of the front wheelarches in your vision. Their high point is directly over the front tyres’ centre lines. No excuse for missing an apex.
Is the Emira fast?
It builds speed quickly, effortlessly. Even if you leave it in third for the hairpins, you’re quickly travelling at three-figure speeds down the following straight. But it’s the way it loses speed that impresses: instant, stable, confidence-inspiring braking power.
This Emira is in the softer Tour suspension spec – a hardier Sport option will also be available – and on the standard Goodyear tyres (with a bespoke compound) rather than the optional track-spec Michelin Cup 2s (ditto). Nevertheless, it can corner at 1.2g on the Goodyears. Its limits are almost unassailably high, yet you always feel in touch with what’s going on – it doesn’t feel numb or uninvolving the way some intensely grippy cars do.
Lotus Emira: first impressions
It’s early to make a call on the Emira. But the signs are very good indeed. Lotus has had the financial backing to make the most of the experience and knowledge it already possesses in spades to make the Emira the very best it can be. Its interior is nicely laid out and thoroughly thought-through, although living with it in rain, shine, day, night and over miles, with fully functional infotainment will be the acid test.
Will it still breathe with the road and offer the same kind of lithe, forgiving ride quality on British roads as the likes of the Elise and Evora? Lotus promises it will, and running over the broken, rutted tarmac on the way in and out of the circuit, the signs are good: there’s enough definition in the steering to feel the joints in the tarmac in detail, yet the low-speed ride feels smooth.
In terms of stability, it feels a step ahead of the already sublime Evora; in this prototype, you can jump on the brakes as hard as you like while relaxing your grip on the steering wheel and it tracks straight and true. I wouldn’t feel quite as comfortable doing the same in an Evora.
Is the Emira as good as, or perhaps better than, a Cayman or an Alpine? Watch this space.
Keyword: Lotus Emira prototype review (2022): good omens