RE: Lotus Poised To 'Twist Key' On Esprit's New V8
Discussion
Fire99 said:
In a nutshell, i'd say it just isn't good enough. (at least on paper) In today's HP hungry world, it's relatively down on power, looks a bit like a stretched Elise and doesn't have the brand Kudos of the likes of Porsche.
To me, the Elise was such a huge success but the company became a bit of a one-trick-pony and their modern-day reputation is not in the premium league.
It is good enough in reality. It is one of the finest cars ever made. Big statement, based on driving it for a week and about 1000 miles, and based on every road test I have read on it. It truly is something special. Brand kudos is far more what it is all about IMHO. I think it looks fantastic, nothing like a stretched Elise either (and far, far bigger). They get huge attention too, probably as they are so rare unfortunately!To me, the Elise was such a huge success but the company became a bit of a one-trick-pony and their modern-day reputation is not in the premium league.
zebedee said:
It is good enough in reality. It is one of the finest cars ever made. Big statement, based on driving it for a week and about 1000 miles, and based on every road test I have read on it. It truly is something special. Brand kudos is far more what it is all about IMHO. I think it looks fantastic, nothing like a stretched Elise either (and far, far bigger). They get huge attention too, probably as they are so rare unfortunately!
I don't doubt that in reality they are great cars. Unfortunately there lies the problem. The points i'm making are likely to be what the less-informed general public are thinking.Say Lotus in recent years and its Elise, Track days and errr not a whole lot else.
I'd quite fancy driving a supercharged Evora.
Fire99 said:
I don't doubt that in reality they are great cars. Unfortunately there lies the problem. The points i'm making are likely to be what the less-informed general public are thinking.
Say Lotus in recent years and its Elise, Track days and errr not a whole lot else.
I'd quite fancy driving a supercharged Evora.
Lotus's Gavan Kershaw summed it up when he said (something like) "its a bit too good of a secret really, when we get people into them, they are converted almost straightaway, its just getting people into them."Say Lotus in recent years and its Elise, Track days and errr not a whole lot else.
I'd quite fancy driving a supercharged Evora.
So yeah, get yourself into one!
zebedee said:
Fire99 said:
I don't doubt that in reality they are great cars. Unfortunately there lies the problem. The points i'm making are likely to be what the less-informed general public are thinking.
Say Lotus in recent years and its Elise, Track days and errr not a whole lot else.
I'd quite fancy driving a supercharged Evora.
Lotus's Gavan Kershaw summed it up when he said (something like) "its a bit too good of a secret really, when we get people into them, they are converted almost straightaway, its just getting people into them."Say Lotus in recent years and its Elise, Track days and errr not a whole lot else.
I'd quite fancy driving a supercharged Evora.
So yeah, get yourself into one!
Luckily Lotus seem to have realised that this was a weakness of the Evora and have decided to build their own engine for the Espirit. Now they also need to go back and stick something a bit more special in the Evora for them to sell. The Evora is a great car in some areas but you can't enter the £50k+ market which has some VERY strong competition from some big players with a product which isn't absolutely spot on in all respects and expect to make a dent in that segment.
Guvernator said:
you can't enter the £50k+ market which has some VERY strong competition from some big players with a product which isn't absolutely spot on in all respects and expect to make a dent in that segment.
BMW 6-series (2011 spec, I quite liked the one before). Spot on in all respects? Flabby looks. No steering feel, detached driver involvement, more expensive and no quicker than an Evora, disappointing back seats given size of car (possibly bigger than Evora legroom, but the fact there are back seats in there at all is amazing).I agree the Toyota engine isn't that exciting, but on a good thrash it sounds good, plenty of nice V6 resonances, also means it is practically silent when you just want to cruise about. Would be nice with their own engine, one of the Lotus drivers at Le Mans reckoned if they had 458 Italia style horsepower in there, it would be re-writing the rulebooks that the Italia has just written. Hopefully that is what we can expect from the Esprit...
zebedee said:
Guvernator said:
you can't enter the £50k+ market which has some VERY strong competition from some big players with a product which isn't absolutely spot on in all respects and expect to make a dent in that segment.
BMW 6-series (2011 spec, I quite liked the one before). Spot on in all respects? Flabby looks. No steering feel, detached driver involvement, more expensive and no quicker than an Evora, disappointing back seats given size of car (possibly bigger than Evora legroom, but the fact there are back seats in there at all is amazing).I agree the Toyota engine isn't that exciting, but on a good thrash it sounds good, plenty of nice V6 resonances, also means it is practically silent when you just want to cruise about. Would be nice with their own engine, one of the Lotus drivers at Le Mans reckoned if they had 458 Italia style horsepower in there, it would be re-writing the rulebooks that the Italia has just written. Hopefully that is what we can expect from the Esprit...
For Lotus to compete, their product has to be superior in all respects just to get over that massive hurdle, sad but unfortunately true. I don't think the Evora needs 458 a-like horsepower but it definately needed more than the 276bhp it launched with but it's not just about the raw bhp figures either. It could have done very well with just 300 odd bhp but the engine needed to be something a bit more special then something out of a Toyata Camry, especially for a car with a mid fifties base spec price tag. A Cayman also has "only" a 3.4 litre V6 with about 300bhp but what a difference in delivery. The engine in a Cayman feels and sounds special, the one in the Evora doesn't.
Having owned an Esprit - purchased new 26 years ago - and having been waiting for an "all new" Esprit ever since I'm not expecting to see this new car anytime soon!
It took Lotus 30 years to achieve global sales of 10,000 Esprits (yes, that's just ONE car a day) so any ideas that a new car will jump straight to the top of the supercar sales league are based on a very large amount of optimism.
They need some sort of stop-gap and need it fast. Rapid revamp of Evora into a car customers want and at a price customers will pay would be a good start.
It took Lotus 30 years to achieve global sales of 10,000 Esprits (yes, that's just ONE car a day) so any ideas that a new car will jump straight to the top of the supercar sales league are based on a very large amount of optimism.
They need some sort of stop-gap and need it fast. Rapid revamp of Evora into a car customers want and at a price customers will pay would be a good start.
Guvernator said:
A Cayman also has "only" a 3.4 litre V6 with about 300bhp but what a difference in delivery. The engine in a Cayman feels and sounds special, the one in the Evora doesn't.
Yup, and lets face it, when you get into supercharged Evora money, you get a bit close to the Nissan GTR, which is in another stratosphere.Every new car needs a Trump Card. Let's hope the Esprit has something to start grabbing the headlines, once it's arrived. At the moment it's lovely theory.
kambites said:
Fire99 said:
Yup, and lets face it, when you get into supercharged Evora money, you get a bit close to the Nissan GTR, which is in another stratosphere.
Well yes, but by that logic no-one would ever buy a bottom end 911 either. 
Guvernator said:
Yes but a basic 911 is still a very good car and Porsche whether you like them or not have a brand appeal that most manufacturers would absolutely kill for. Lotus can't hope to compete with that unless they have a unique selling point, the car is considerably cheaper or is significantly better in most of the areas which count. The Evora had none of those things hence why they aren't flying out the door. They desperately need to revamp the Evora ASAP to get the sales volumes up and if the Espirit is to succeed, it really needs to blow everyone's doors off. Even a very good Espirit just won't do.
Indeed. Lotus' problem with the Evora is not the car as such, it's the lack of a recognised brand. The problem with the Evora is it's just to expensive for a car with a toyota v6, the price is really high, if the basic version was 45k and hot version 50k, they would have done much better IMO
There going up against a rival porsche, who have a bespoke engine, and not much of a differance in price, aswell as there solid reputation
The GTR from nissan got round this problem by offering hugh performance
Lotus, needed to undercut on price IMO, or at the current price point the car needed to be shipped with a v8 and more go, to stand out from the 6 cyclinder crowd
you can go head to head of price, and offer a hum drum v6, which although decent is not in the class of rival cars engines, and expect to do great no matter how good the rest of the package is, for these kind of cars the engine is very important
The NA steven esprit did terrible business compared to the Turbo, the 90s elan was turbo all the way, except you could find a n/a version somewere down the back of the filling cabinet
The S2 elise, the 190hp varient was the star compared to the 130hp car
There going up against a rival porsche, who have a bespoke engine, and not much of a differance in price, aswell as there solid reputation
The GTR from nissan got round this problem by offering hugh performance
Lotus, needed to undercut on price IMO, or at the current price point the car needed to be shipped with a v8 and more go, to stand out from the 6 cyclinder crowd
you can go head to head of price, and offer a hum drum v6, which although decent is not in the class of rival cars engines, and expect to do great no matter how good the rest of the package is, for these kind of cars the engine is very important
The NA steven esprit did terrible business compared to the Turbo, the 90s elan was turbo all the way, except you could find a n/a version somewere down the back of the filling cabinet
The S2 elise, the 190hp varient was the star compared to the 130hp car
peter450 said:
The problem with the Evora is it's just to expensive for a car with a toyota v6, the price is really high, if the basic version was 45k and hot version 50k, they would have done much better IMO
Objectively, 49-59k doesn't seem unreasonable for the Evora, given that the 911 and GTR start at about 70k and the Exige is in the 35-46k range. So the engine is based on one which appears in some lesser Toyota cars - more of an Evora is bespoke than an M3 saloon, yet an M3 which is mostly derived from a 23k repmobile is worth 57k while an Evora isn't?
Makes no sense to me, and it's not just the Evora, it's the whole Lotus range. I can't square how much people think a low volume sports car from Lotus should cost with how much people are willing to pay for - for example - a souped up Golf with an Audi badge on the nose.
otolith said:
Objectively, 49-59k doesn't seem unreasonable for the Evora, given that the 911 and GTR start at about 70k and the Exige is in the 35-46k range.
So the engine is based on one which appears in some lesser Toyota cars - more of an Evora is bespoke than an M3 saloon, yet an M3 which is mostly derived from a 23k repmobile is worth 57k while an Evora isn't?
Makes no sense to me, and it's not just the Evora, it's the whole Lotus range. I can't square how much people think a low volume sports car from Lotus should cost with how much people are willing to pay for - for example - a souped up Golf with an Audi badge on the nose.
I really like the Evora, and yeah i agree it's way more bespoke than a M3, which just goes to show how important the engine package is in such a carSo the engine is based on one which appears in some lesser Toyota cars - more of an Evora is bespoke than an M3 saloon, yet an M3 which is mostly derived from a 23k repmobile is worth 57k while an Evora isn't?
Makes no sense to me, and it's not just the Evora, it's the whole Lotus range. I can't square how much people think a low volume sports car from Lotus should cost with how much people are willing to pay for - for example - a souped up Golf with an Audi badge on the nose.
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