Monday 14th May 2012

Lotus Evora GT4 evolves into GTC

More power, less weight for Lotus's latest racer

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Lotus has been busy beavering away at an evolved version of the Evora GT4 racer wedrove briefly last year and has created this, the Evora GTC.

As well as some wider wheels and tyres (and some very sexy-looking studded wheelarches), the GTC has grown some carbon fibre doors, a carbon roof and a carbon fibre engine cover, helping to save around 30kg.

There's also now traction control and anti-lock brakes (boo, hiss etc) and an extra 100hp or so (hurrah!), bringing the GTC's 4.0-litre V6 power to 450hp and 339lb ft of torque, put down to the rear wheels via an Xtrac six-speed sequential gearbox.

We've only one thing to say about that, Lotus - can we have a go, please?

 

[pw32]

Car looks lovely, although I'll challenge you on the sexy looking studded arches as something you find in the local tesco car park late at night. Nasty.

[Captain Muppet]

pw32 said:

sexy looking studded arches

Because racecar

[DanB7290]

I thought the engine was from Toyota, however it says Cosworth on it?

[Skater12]

Propping up the back of a grid near you soon.

[suffolk009]

I'm being a bit thick here - but is that a road car or race car?

[OlberJ]

Apart from the flag on the spoiler, that looks brilliant!

[veevee]

suffolk009 said:

I'm being a bit thick here - but is that a road car or race car?

Judging by the 0mm of tread on the tyres, I'm going with not a road car.

[pw32]

Captain Muppet said:

Because racecar

You might want to pad your point out with some words...

Race cars, don't have to look like a home brew pot rivit special.

[TroubledSoul]

Lotus: "fked if we do, fked if we don't!"

[Captain Muppet]

pw32 said:

Captain Muppet said:

Because racecar

You might want to pad your point out with some words...

Race cars, don't have to look like a home brew pot rivit special.

[img]picture of a GT4 with a narrower track than the GTC[/img]

Are we not doing memes this week? Trends are so hard to keep track of.

Race cars don't have to look like anything. As long as the bodywork is functional the job is done.

Look at the current F1 cars. Only the McLaren is pretty, and it doesn't seem to help.

[Krikkit]

DanB7290 said:

I thought the engine was from Toyota, however it says Cosworth on it?

Cosworth make their own units for racing and do tuning work. I'd take a stab at this being the latter.

[Dave Hedgehog]

Captain Muppet said:

pw32 said:

sexy looking studded arches

Because racecar

Yep

The 760 RS Zonda has them for this reason

[Fluffsri]

Lovely

[Twincam16]

Krikkit said:

DanB7290 said:

I thought the engine was from Toyota, however it says Cosworth on it?

Cosworth make their own units for racing and do tuning work. I'd take a stab at this being the latter.

Also, given that the Evora's V6 has come in for criticism for being Toyota-like in reviews, but escapes criticism when supercharged in the middle of an Exige, it would make sense to have a more specialised powerplant for the Evora, especially given that the 'new Elan' (which is blatantly just a rebodied Evora) is supposed to have a 4-litre V6. Well here it is.

[thewheelman]

Love it. Want it. Just lose the union flag please.

[chazwozza]

nice alloys.

[gt750boy]

How long you think before Ronin rebuilds his 'fastest Lotus' to look like this and starts yelling at everyone who doesn't bow before his automotive godliness?

[Foodhoover]

First off I like the arches, but doesn't the low down front 3/4 view have a bit too much of the lightnin' McQueen about it to be taklen too seriously. If it wasn't for the scalextric stripes in yellow it would be straight off pixars iPads.

[Stew2000]

veevee said:

suffolk009 said:

I'm being a bit thick here - but is that a road car or race car?

Judging by the 0mm of tread on the tyres, I'm going with not a road car.

How hard can it be to get it road legal?

[cathalm]

Skater12 said:

Propping up the back of a grid near you soon.

Research. Prevents making a fool of yourself.