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 as far from reality as one might guess, with the race car based heavily on the Evora road car and even sharing the same aluminum tub.

Thanks to a near excessive use of carbon fiber the concept weighs between 200 and 300 lbs less than the production Evora S, while the engine gets a healthy bump in power. With a modified version of the Evora S’s supercharged 3.5-liter V6, power is raised from 345-hp to 420-hp. No acceleration figures have been provided by Lotus, but with the stock car running 4.3 seconds to 60 mph and this concept also sporting a sequential transmission, a high 3.0 second time is certain.

Along with a significantly more aggressive front-end design, much of the Evora GTE’s look comes from a wider body, which is between two and three inches wider per side. (We could, however, do without that rear wing).

Inside, the car is coated almost entirely in carbon fiber, with no carpeting to speak of, while carbon-backed seats are swathed in ultra-grippy Alcantara.

Lotus has yet to confirm if the Evora GTE Road Car Concept will go into production but PR boss Kevin Smith assures us it’s not as distant an idea as it seems, and that a race car inspired Lotus street car could hit the market as early as next year. Don’t get too excited, however, as Lotus could face big problems getting it certified for sale in the U.S.

GALLERY: Lotus Evora GTE Road Car Concept

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The negative reaction to Aston Martin‘s Lagonda concept car at the Geneva Auto Show two years ago might have seemed like the end of a plan to revive the marque, but the British luxury automaker is ready to prove doubters wrong, with CEO Ulrich Bez now confirming the new sub-brand has been given the green light.

Perhaps more importantly, Aston Martin has a larger plan, with Bez telling AutoCar that more products for Lagonda are in the pipe. Don’t look for Lagonda sports cars, however, but more SUVs, with the brand squarely focused on AWD models designed for Russia, China and other emerging markets.

Priced between £100-300k ($160,000 to $480,000) the brand will launch a new ultra-luxury SUV segment well beyond current high-end SUVs like the Porsche Cayenne.

Thankfully it appears as though the first Lagonda model will differ significantly from the concept car. Described by Aston design boss Marek Reichman as “a reaction car,” he points out that while reaction to the vehicle was negative, reaction to the brand proved otherwise. “People didn’t say Lagonda shouldn’t exist, they just said that a Lagonda shouldn’t look like that. Our research shows that 60 per cent of people thought Lagonda was a viable brand.”

GALLERY: Aston Martin Lagonda Concept

[Source: AutoCar]