Not Great ! Evora S vs BMW 1M

[Tuna]

5 USA said:

That's exactly what gets up my shirt. I've still got all the M250 pre-launch photos and blurb - and the darned thing looks much closer to the sort of car I want to buy!!

I sat in the blue one and it was a good place to be. However, there was zero practical storage space and the cabin was still tight. At the projected power output, it was going to end up a 'big Elise', without any benefits as a practical car. It promised a lot, but I think it would have under-delivered in terms of competing with other 'grown up' sports cars. Given the price and the direction the market has gone in, I think Lotus were right to can it.

It really looked fantastic though. I lost quite a chunky deposit not getting one.

[RudeDog]

JACK6284 said:

Back to basics though, looks.

BMW 1 series: you can't polish a turd!

Incorrect!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBj6PonX14A

[Scuffers]

Tuna said:

I sat in the blue one and it was a good place to be. However, there was zero practical storage space and the cabin was still tight. At the projected power output, it was going to end up a 'big Elise', without any benefits as a practical car. It promised a lot, but I think it would have under-delivered in terms of competing with other 'grown up' sports cars. Given the price and the direction the market has gone in, I think Lotus were right to can it.

It really looked fantastic though. I lost quite a chunky deposit not getting one.

disagree...

couple of years back got to compare it with the Evora (they were both at a show), and apart from some detail work on the interior, I think the M250 was a better proposition (at the right money)

look at http://www.pistonheads.com/lotus/m250/m250-launch....

if that was available now at ~£40K (and a current engine) I am pretty sure it would sell

[bobo]

Scuffers said:

disagree...


if that was available now at ~£40K (and a current engine) I am pretty sure it would sell

i can agree with that but then so would the evora. which is why i think the standard car is actually the better proposition because simply put the S is too expensive relative to its rivals. this view is perhaps reinforced by the total lack of a secondary market.

i think every single one of the 65 cars available on PH classifieds is held by a dealer which is far from encouraging when talking about sales, price and value.

[Scuffers]

bobo said:

i can agree with that but then so would the evora. which is why i think the standard car is actually the better proposition because simply put the S is too expensive relative to its rivals. this view is perhaps reinforced by the total lack of a secondary market.

i think every single one of the 65 cars available on PH classifieds is held by a dealer which is far from encouraging when talking about sales, price and value.

it's not just the money though that's the problem.

I think their doggid determination to make it a 2+2 has screwed up the car both dynamically and visually, and this is a bit of a fundamental issue.

[Vladimir Pukin]

I think you could get away with the 2+2 idea if you aimed it just for carrying children (up to 12 years old, say). From the photos it looks like the seats ar flat and more or less full size but as a result there is no leg room at all. If they were buckets like in the back of an XK and Lotus sold (or included) a child booster specially designed for their seats then you might yet some leg room for kids (remember young kids feet are dangling in mid-air, not under the front seats) and very occaisional adult use. I'm not sure they have thought about the use case. Then again I've only seen photos and not tried the rear seats myself so I could be totally wrong.

[Scuffers]

Vladimir Pukin said:

I think you could get away with the 2+2 idea if you aimed it just for carrying children (up to 12 years old, say). From the photos it looks like the seats ar flat and more or less full size but as a result there is no leg room at all. If they were buckets like in the back of an XK and Lotus sold (or included) a child booster specially designed for their seats then you might yet some leg room for kids (remember young kids feet are dangling in mid-air, not under the front seats) and very occaisional adult use. I'm not sure they have thought about the use case. Then again I've only seen photos and not tried the rear seats myself so I could be totally wrong.

no, your just about right.

unless you have the front seats pulled right forwards, there is zero leg-room in the back, as well as no head room for anybody over 5 foot tall.

I had a discussion way back when this was first being flagged as a 2+2 with a guy from Lotus, his assertion back then was it was a hole in the market and would make it stand out, my argument at the time (and it's much the same now) is that a mid-engined 2+2 just won't work, nobody historically has made one that works, and the Evora falls down in the same way they all have, ie. being way too compromised as both a mid-engined car and a 2+2.

the only reason the 911 works with a back seat is it's rear engined, try doing the same with a Cayman and see what you end up with, even Ferrari failed miserably when they tried.

[Vladimir Pukin]

If you look at the rear seats on this photo:

http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/largepic.asp?i=28...

they look too big. You could cut 4-6 inches off the depth of those and they would work well for young kids. No adult would want to sit in the back anyway. I think it could work if Lotus just targetted it's use more realistically.

Maybe there's some legal minimum size for seats?

Edited by Vladimir Pukin on Monday 4th July 12:58

[Scuffers]

Vladimir Pukin said:

If you look at the rear seats on this photo:

http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/largepic.asp?i=28...

they look too big. You could cut 4-6 inches off the depth of those and they would work well for young kids. No adult would want to sit in the back anyway. I think it could work if Lotus just targetted it's use more realistically.

Maybe there's some legal minimum size for seats?

looks can be deceiving, go sit on one....

[Tuna]

Scuffers said:

disagree...

couple of years back got to compare it with the Evora (they were both at a show), and apart from some detail work on the interior, I think the M250 was a better proposition (at the right money)

look at http://www.pistonheads.com/lotus/m250/m250-launch....

if that was available now at ~£40K (and a current engine) I am pretty sure it would sell

Fair enough, we each see different things in cars. If you looked at the M250 though, it achieved the dubious honour of having less storage space than the Elise, and like a few older Lotus' the A-pillar was damn close to your head, with the roof having minimal clearance. As I said, I went through the whole process when the M250 was launched, being in the first handful of depositors, and got to view the show cars and test mule a number of times at various shows and exhibitions. Even at the time, there were questions about how practical it was actually going to be, whether it would actually meet the performance figures they were stating (which were definitely optimistic) - and I would have eaten my hat if it came out any less than £45K (probably more) which is Evora territory again. There were a whole load of problems at Lotus at the time, but I got the distinct impression that they were struggling to meet their promises on the car and that contributed hugely to it being canned.

It seems to me the trick they tried to pull with the Evora is keeping the cabin short by requiring a 'legs apart' sitting position in the back - ie. the curve of the front seat gets too close to the back for you to sit square on and legs together. You can sit with legs apart, but I think the natural reaction in a small space is to try to bring your knees together to take up less room - and you immediately find yourself restricted by the front seats. Some people get on with it ok, but it's not a very flexible space.

Trying to fit that package into the Elise-like lines and within the M250-style outline is a tough challenge - Danny Bahar may have made a good call in allowing the new cars to make a clean break from the Elise era design cues. I'm a big fan of the Elan. On the other hand I've not yet seen a picture of the next gen Elise that is at all flattering, and the Esprit is not distinct enough from the rest of the line up to be a supercar in my eyes.