After winning the Dewar Trophy for Technical Excellence earlier this year, Lotus is really hauling in the hardware overseas for its new four-seater Evora sports car. In August the U.K.’s AutoCar named the Evora the “Driver’s Car of the Year,” while CAR magazine announced it as their “Performance Car of the Year.” Now Lotus can handily claim what is arguably the U.K.’s top trophy, “Car of the Year” by none other than EVO magazine.

Pitted against vehicles from the likes of Lamborghini, Ferrari, Porsche and Aston Martin, the Evora won EVO’s COTY award after a 13 car, 1,000 mile comparo was whittled down to just five vehicles.

Meanwhile, EVO also awarded the 2-Eleven “Track Car of the Year 2009.”

“It is a great endorsement for Lotus cars that the most refined car in the product line up is picking up awards at the same time as the most extreme car in the range, illustrating the great wealth of engineering and manufacturing expertise at Lotus,” said Luke Bennett, Operations Director of Lotus Cars Limited.

The 2010 Lotus Evora will launch in North America in the first quarter of 2010.

Lotus has just announced that a of October 1st, former Ferrari executive Dany Bahar will take over at the helm of Group Lotus plc. Bahar moves into the position after former Lotus CEO Mike Kimberly retired in July due to health reasons.

At Ferrari Bahar worked as Senior VP of Commercial and Brand, where he oversaw not only the important job of road car sales, but also the lucrative merchandising aspect of the Italian automaker. Previous to to the position at Ferrari, he worked for Red Bull and helped organize the partnership between Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso with Ferrari, as well as the energy drink company’s NASCAR efforts.

“Lotus has a worldwide reputation for innovative engineering and superb sports cars that lead the world in efficiency, design and dynamics,” Bahar said in a  statement. “With the recent launch of the award-winning Evora, there is proof that Lotus is better placed than many to capitalize on the rapidly changing automotive market. I can’t wait to get my plans underway in October.”

One has to wonder if Bahar’s appoitment will usher in an era where Lotus returns its full efforts to the field of motorsports.

Lotus CEO Mike Kimberley has announced his retirement as the head of the U.K. based sports car maker due to medical reasons. The 70-year-0ld Kimberley has been suffering from severe back pain, underwent surgery in 2008 and has now been advised by his doctors to resign his position.

“Sadly, it is on doctor’s orders that I am stepping down but I will leave confident that Lotus is in great shape with a strong management team fully supported by our shareholder in Malaysia,” Kimberley said in a statement. “It’ll be very hard to leave knowing that there are such exciting times ahead but I’ll take with me many very happy memories. I want to extend my thanks to the company’s shareholder for their unfailing support, my management team and the wonderful staff both at Hethel and at our various operational locations throughout the world. Most of all I want to thank our Lotus customers and loyal fans worldwide for their support over the years.”

Kimberley started his career with Jaguar in 1953 and has since worked in the automotive industry for 56 years. He joined Lotus in 1969, leaving in 1992 to pursue other opportunities with companies like General Motors and Lamborghini, before returning to Lotus in 2006.

Since then Kimberley has over seen the production of the Evora, as well as the expansion of Lotus Engineering, a world renowned high-tech engineering firm.

Kimberley will officially retire on tomorrow, July 17th.

Official release after the jump:

While the new Lotus Evora has already launched in Europe, the official release of the car in the U.S. has yet to take place. Normally we wouldn’t have the full U.S. specifications until that time, but a three page tech sheet from Lotus has leaked out with all the juicy details.

And while so often the U.S. market gets the shaft when it comes to high performance cars, it appears as though Lotus won’t be watering down its new flagship when it makes its debut stateside.

The Evora will be powered by a Toyota V6 engine and output is rated at 276hp at 6400 rpm, while torque is 258 ft-lbs at 4700 rpm. The car will weight just over 3,000 lbs (3,047 to be exact) and thanks to a six-speed manual gearbox will be able to hit 60 mph in just 4.9 seconds. 100 mph will come in 12.3 seconds. There is no mention of an automatic transmission, but one is expected to be offered. A sports transmission with shorter gears is an option.

Lotus also gives braking distance figures for the Evora with its four-piston AP Racing calipers at each corner with front 13.8-inch rotors and rear 13.1-inch rotors. It will stop from 60 mph in 110 feet and from 100 mph in 290 feet.

The car will come straight from the factory with a staggered wheel fitment, with 18-inch rollers up front and 19-inch wheels in the rear. A set of forged rims, which weigh 7.1 lbs less (in total), will be available as an option.

As expected ,with the fuel-efficient Toyota engine, as well as the light-weight Lotus chassis, fuel-economy is impressive with 22.8 mpg in the city and 43.5 mpg on the highway for an average of 32.5 mpg.

See the full spec sheets after the jump:

[Source: LotusEnthusiast.net]

In an interview with the Financial Times, Lotus CEO Michael Kimberly said that Lotus is working on a Hybrid and that the vehicle could be ready as early as March. And March just so happens to be when the Geneva Auto Show is… and Lotus never passes up an opportunity to unveil something in Geneva.

The car will be Hybrid or, more specifically, a range-extended EV… much like the yet-unreleased Chevy Volt.

Using an electric engine, battery packs and a gasoline engine, the car would run primarily on electric power – switching over to a conventional Hybrid system once the juice runs out.

This would be an interesting move for Lotus, as until now the company has donated the chassis for two other EVs, the Dodge EV and Tesla Roadster.

There is speculation that Lotus is looking to General Motors for help but it is more likely that they will continue to work with Toyota.

As for the platform, we expect the new Evora will provide the base for Lotus’s EV, as hybrid philosophy and the idea behind the Evora as an every-day sportscar mesh quite well.

[Source: Wired from Financial Times]