After decades of borrowing powertrains from Ford, Renault, Toyota and other OEMs, Lotus has revealed some of the first pictures of a working engine, designed and built in-house. From the photo released on Facebook, the engine appears to be a DOHC V8 with a racy looking intake plenum and airbox setup, similar to an Italian…
After having showcased numerous new concept cars at the past several auto shows, one might expect that Lotus had dried up its reserve of new car news. Not so. At the Frankfurt Auto Show the British manufacturer had on display six new or newish models. Many won’t make their way to North America, but some…
After being revealed in concept form at Pebble Beach, just a few weeks later Lotus has rolled out the production version of the Evora GTE Road Car at the Frankfurt Auto Show today. In many ways a road-going version of the Evora GTE race car, the road car holds the title of the most powerful…
Having been cut from the Lotus lineup only recently Lotus hasn’t wasted any time in bringing back it’s hard-core track superstar, the Exige. Looking remarkably similar to its predecessor, the new Exige S is a solid 10-inches longer and 2-inches wider than that car. Perhaps the biggest change, however, is under the hood, with the…
Alongside a new Exige S street car, Lotus has unveiled its proposed entry into rally racing, the Exige R-GT, today at the Frankfurt Auto Show. Weighing in at around 2,600 lbs this race car trades the old Exige’s 4-cylinder for something close to what can be found out back in the Evora S – a…
Ahead of its Frankfurt Auto Show premiere of six new models, Lotus has released a perplexing video teaser of one of these new sports cars. But wait, the above screen shot, taken from the boxer-on-a-race-track Lotus Films production, hints that perhaps Lotus will reveal an all-new Exige in Frankfurt. Don’t expect a production model, but…
Lotus‘ Elise is a pretty wicked sports car straight from the factory, but with some creativity one can have a serious street/race car on their hands. This roofless Elise has been floating around the Internet for some time now, supposedly packing 305-hp in a 1500-lb body making it one ultra-lightweight, supercharged, and sequentially-shifted machine. Now…
September 5th marks the birthday of Freddie Mercury, the legendary front man to the rock and roll band Queen. Having succumbed to AIDS almost twenty years ago, fans, friends and family will gather at the Savoy Hotel on September 5th, 2011 to celebrate what would have been Freddie’s 65th birthday. In honor of the occasion,…
The Lotus Cup USA Series will begin its season on September 2nd at New Jersey Motorsports Park, followed by a second round at Lime Rock Park In Connecticut on October 20th. The inaugural East Coast events kick off the series, which features both open lapping days and a time trial event. The idea is to let Lotus…
For a company that only has one car left in its lineup (at least in North America), Lotus sure has a lot going on. The automaker has announced the debut of what will amount to six new models at the Frankfurt Auto Show. To be more specific, however, there will be three new cars, two…
Gordon Murray, the man responsible for not only designing, but conceiving the idea for the McLaren F1, is now a part of Lotus. Murray joints the likes of industry veterans Tom Purvez and Bob Lutz on the brand’s advisory council, giving input on the future direction of the brand. The purpose of the council, says…
Amid all the historic autos on display at the annual Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, the Concept Lawn is a look at modern works of vehicular art – not all of them concepts either. Vehicles on display at this year’s event included the the Infiniti Etheria concept, the SSC Tuatara concept and the Lotus Evora GTE…
Any Lotus enthusiast will tell you that the brand would be wise to stop pumping resources into Formula 1 and IndyCar, an instead get more heavily involved in road racing. After all, in many respects it represents a better bang-for-the-buck for the marketing folks, with a direct correlation between the cars that race and the…
Taking the idea of a track-focused street car to the next level, Lotus has unveiled the GTE Road Car Concept at Pebble Beach. Named after the GTE class cars that Lotus is currently racing in Europe, this concept is essentially a blend of that competition racer with a street-legal Evora. In many ways it’s not…
The Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance is in full swing, and Lotus has just unveiled the Exige Matte Black Final Edition, a special model reserved exclusively for the North American Market. The Exige Matte Black Final Edition will premier within the Lotus exhibit on Peter Hay Hill on August 18-21. Lotus will only produce twenty-five Exige…
In a fit of corporate community outreach, Lotus hired Swizz Beatz (Kasseem Daoud Dean) to head Lotus’s Creative Design department, which may sound like the plot to a screwball 80′s comedy (Gung Ho meets Trading Places?) but actually came with a press release. The rapper and hip-hop producer wasn’t just chosen to become Lotus’s spokesman—no,…
The Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance is two days away, and Lotus is gearing up to unleash the Evora GTE Road Car Concept and the Exige Matte Black Final Edition. The Evora GTE Road Car will be unveiled at the McCall’s Motorworks Revival event Wednesday night, on August 17 at the Monterey Jet Center. This Evora…
Lotus will be packing heat this year at the upcoming Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance with the Evora GTE Road Car Concept and the Exige Matte Black Final Edition. The Evora GTE Road Car will be unveiled to the world for the first time at the McCall’s Motorworks Revival event Wednesday night, August 17 at the…
“Chillen in my beemer, listenin to Ether.” Well, Swizz Beats won’t be singing those lyrics anymore. Lotus has appointed American rapper and producer Swizz Beatz (Kasseem Daoud Dean) as Vice President of Creative Design and Global Marketing, this afternoon. While Swizz Beatz has a broad creative background, having a portfolio that includes music producer, rapper,…
Don’t let the Swizz Beatz involvement fool you: Lotus still wants you to know that they build sports cars. Case in point: at the swanky Pebble Beach Concours D’Elegance this year, Lotus will unveil a GTE-class race car based on their Evora. The Evora GTE Road Car Concept is designed to race in the GTE…
The current Lotus Exige is on the way out. Production has stopped for the European spec model since last December, because its current 1.8-liter, four-cylinder engine does not meet current emission standards. And here at home, Lotus just announced a Final Edition model to bring the car’s run to a close. So what is Lotus…
Lotus has to clear out its hoary old inventory for the future of its “New Era,” and as such, it’s sending the Elise and Exige out of American production with some guaranteed-to-be-rare limited editions. Production for the Elise and Exige will end August 2011 for America—Lotus cites its difficulty in sourcing Toyota’s 1.8-liter 2ZZ engine…
There’s a scene in the movie Just Married—scratch that, every comedy about Europe ever—where the main characters squeeze themselves into a hopelessly small rental car that may or may not be a Smart, and then zany hijinks ensue. But those traveling to Europe might get the chance to rent something a little more exciting than…
In a recently filed document, NHTSA said, on its website that it had received 17 individual complaints from Elise owners that an oil cooler line ruptured, spraying the fluid onto the rear wheel assemblies and elsewhere in the engine bay.
