The speculation is all that keeps us Lotus fans going sometimes. In the
absence of any concrete news about future developments we'll jump on any
snippet.
The debate over future power plants for Lotuses has been rife for well over a
year now. Fuelled by the news that Lotus intended to return to the USA with the
Elise, the selection of an engine for that project has been the subject of much
conjecture.
This week AutoExpress report that they've spotted cars near Hethel using '2.5 litre' V6
Toyota engines.
Cars
using the V6 have supposedly been spotted near the Norfolk HQ, with further
development mules being in the shape of VX220's.
So how suitable would the V6 be? The latest Camry engine is the 2995cc, 24
valve unit giving 195bhp with aluminium alloy head and block. 195bhp is easily possible from a four-pot so a V6 seems an unlikely choice in our books. Shoehorning the V6 into the mid-engined Elise would be quite an engineering challenge only worthwhile if extreme power was being sought.
If a Toyota unit was to be used it then the four cylinder 2.4 would seem more appropriate. That generates almost 160bhp using VVTi technology and would require less of a engineering feat than the V6. However, compared to the high output available from Honda's four-pots currently, these suggestions that Toyota units are being tested seem all the more unbelievable.
No doubt the debate will go on...