Lotus has rustled up a more potent Evora with the new supercharged ‘S'. Road Test Editor HOWARD WALKER gets behind the wheel.
Growing up in merrie olde England during the swinging 1960s, any discussion about Lotus sports cars was usually peppered with some comedian declaring: “Lotus. Doesn’t that stand for Loads Of Trouble, Usually Serious?"
While driving an original 1960s Lotus Elan – a car that made the current Mazda Miata seem obese – was the closest you could get to owning a road-going racecar, it typically fell to pieces after a few weeks of ownership!
But all that’s changed. These days, Lotus is all grown-up, funded by cash-rich Malaysians. And they have a master plan to build a five-car range of dramatic new sports cars over the next five years, powered by Lotus-designed-and-built engines.
The blossoming of Lotus kicked off in 2009 with the introduction in Europe of the exotic new Evora. With a mid-mounted Toyota-supplied 3.5-liter V6 providing the power, two-plus-two seating, racecar agility, and real-car quality, it quickly became to car of choice for the serious sports car lover.
The only criticism you could make was that 276 horsepower was a little limp for a sports car costing $60-grand. Heck, a base V6 Mustang boasts 305 horsepower and sells for under $23,000, not that they’re rivals.
But the guys at Lotus listened hard and have now responded with their new Evora S. Bolting a supercharger to the Toyota V6, below, has taken max power up to a much more thrilling 345 horsepower.
Suddenly the little Evora is a serious alternative to the likes of Porsche’s Cayman R and the thundering Chevy Corvette ZO6. Now when you step on the gas, you’ll run 0-to-60 mph in an eager 4.3 seconds (4.8 for the regular Evora) and the action won’t quit till the speedo is showing 172 mph!
It certainly needs to be hot stuff because with a base sticker of $76,000 – and closer to $85k with all the bells, whistles and baubles – you’re getting dangerously close to Porsche Carrera S territory. And, to me, that’s not a contest the little plastic Lotus wants to face.
But all you need is one great driving road to discover the magic behind the Evora S. And, courtesy of Lotus PR guru Kevin Smith, we recently got to sample this hip-high rocketship on the blisteringly-fast, traffic-free two-laners through the Coast Ranges hills east of Monterey, California. And that was after some hot laps of the snaking Laguna Seca racetrack, below.
There is truly something otherworldly about the way this Evora sweeps through fast curves. Much has to do with the steering, which has a laser-precision you only find in single-seat racecars. Throw in leech-like grip from its 19-inch rubberware, the perfect weight distribution of a mid-mounted motor and a wispy 3,171-pound curb weight, and you have a car that scythes through bends as easily as a chain saw through a twig!
And with the kind of brakes that can stop time – hit the middle pedal hard and you’ll go from 70 mph to stationary in a remarkable 146 feet – you tend to arrive at corners at lot faster than most other sports cars.
The increased horsepower has really added a lot more sparkle to the driving. Not only is the car blisteringly quick off the line, but also its mid-range thrust for rapid passing, is sensational. This baby really flies. The fun factor is also heightened courtesy of the Evora’s slick-shifting six-speed manual transmission, right, which has been much improved for the ‘S’. The shifts are now click-click precise, light and lightening-fast.
If you’re a fan of auto boxes, the Evora S will get a Toyota-sourced six-speed paddle-shift automatic next year – Lotus is calling it IPS, short for Intelligent Precision Shift. But I can’t imagine any Lotus purist wanting one.
Less exciting is the Evora’s cabin, above, that looks and feels a little like that $23-grand Ford Mustang’s. While the body-gripping bucket seats are sensational, the rest is fairly ho-hum, with hap-hazardly-placed buttons, teeny instruments and cheapish-looking trim. Not what you expect of a car costing $76,000-plus. And that teeny-weeny back window and thick rear roof pillars reduce rearward visibility to near zero. It’s like looking through a mail slot!
As you can imagine, this new Evora S is certainly not for everyone. But if you revel in the pure thrill of driving and crave something a tad more exclusive than your everyday Porsche Cayman, this new Lotus is certainly worth a drive.
For more information about the Lotus Evora S and the full model range, please visit, http://www.lotuscars.com/en/lotus-range