Lotus Evora GTE Not Heading to America After All
It’s the most hard core Lotus ever, which makes news that it likely won’t ever go on sale in America that much more depressing.
According to Lotus Cars USA PR boss Kevin Smith GTE models are currently being built to fill pre-orders in China while the British exotic car maker is also working to homologate the race-inspired Evora for Europe.
“The plan has been that once they’re successful with the European homologation they might then do the necessary work to get the car homologated and certified for sale in North America,” says Smith, with emphasis on the “might”.
Read AutoGuide’s Lotus Evora S Review Here
While he doesn’t believe the cars would need to be crash tested again, certification for the engine is more complex. “Pumping that engine up to 438hp AND meeting all emissions requirements would be no small feat and would take significant time and financial resources,” he says. “With these substantial costs, that we likely wouldn’t be able to spread very well over the expected low volume of sales, it looks as though it may well keep the GTE from coming to North America at all.”
Based on the Evora race car, the GTE model is substantially wider than the production car and is powered by a 438 hp supercharged 3.5-liter V6 engine.
GALLERY: Lotus Evora GTE
With AutoGuide from its launch, Colum previously acted as Editor-in-Chief of Modified Luxury & Exotics magazine where he became a certifiable car snob driving supercars like the Koenigsegg CCX and racing down the autobahn in anything over 500 hp. He has won numerous automotive journalism awards including the Best Video Journalism Award in 2014 and 2015 from the Automotive Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC). Colum founded Geared Content Studios, VerticalScope's in-house branded content division and works to find ways to integrate brands organically into content.
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