Lotus Emira 420 Sport driven, £100k garage...

... and the cars that killed their makers

By Cam Tait / Wednesday, 5 August 2026 / Loading comments

Where have all the sports cars gone? Alpine has just called time on the A110, the BMW Z4 is no more and Porsche closed the order books on the 718 Boxster and Cayman in Europe over two years ago. So if you’re after something rear-wheel drive with just a pair of seats for under six figures, a Lotus Emira is your only real option. Which is no bad thing, because the V6 version is a real peach and, at the time of writing, is still available in 3.5-litre supercharged form. But now there’s a new range-topper in town, one that’s packing fewer cylinders and a price tag that’ll put it right in contention with a Porsche 911.

So it’s the perfect starting point for this week’s episode of The Gassing Station podcast, not least because Sam Sheehan’s travelled to the hallowed ground at Hethel to drive it. It is, of course, the Emira 420 Sport, which is not only the punchiest four-cylinder turbo version to date, but also usurps the V6 SE as the lineup’s new flagship. Which is bold, to say the least, because the AMG-sourced four-banger was by some margin the second-best engine to Toyota’s V6. But can a raft of upgrades, including a bump to 421hp, uprated dampers and various weight-saving measures, tempt you away from the slightly less powerful, but cheaper V6 SE and its six-speed manual gearbox? We’ll let Sam answer that one.

Meanwhile, there’s a buying challenge to sink our teeth into, and this week’s one is a real belter. PHer bqf may be a few years away from retirement, but that hasn’t stopped them from mulling the idea of what their garage will look like when the time comes to wave the nine-to-five goodbye. With a budget of £100,000 to play with, we thought it best to buy not one, but three cars to cover all the main bases. Sam’s trio include this Lotus Elise 135 Sport that’s currently up for auction, a V8 Bentley Flying Spur and this sublime Peugeot 205 GTI 1.6. I have, predictably, gone for a Toyota GR Yaris (this one’s also going under the hammer), an Alpina D3 S Touring and a TVR Chimaera for tinkering with. Endlessly. Two very solid three-car garages in our humble opinion, but you can chuck your own in here if you think you can do better.

To round things off, we have a read through Durbster’s ‘cars that killed the manufacturer’ topic, and reminisce about the some of the automotive world's greatest failures. The TVR Speed 6, NSU Ro 80 and Renault Avantime (built by Matra, remember) all get a mention, but you’ll surely have your own offerings to pop into the topic here. Next stop: Annual Service…

Listen here