EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT LOTUS REPOSITION

Hot on the Eletre's heels, the Emeya is another EV and the first four-door Lotus since the Carlton

- Vijay Pattni

This is the new Lotus Emeya, and it is 17mph slower than the last saloon car to wear four doors and a Lotus badge. That infamous Nineties troublemaker - because not enough has been written about it - was a Vauxhall breathed on by Norfolk's specialists deemed too fast for public roads.

TopGear estimates there'll be 100 per cent less parliamentary debate and newspaper campaigns to get this car off the public highway, such is the 21st century motoring landscape. You'll likely have some internal debate over the Emeya's silhouette and visual language, though.

And how that debate materialises rather depends upon your feelings about the Eletre SUV, from which this new Emeya clearly takes its aesthetic. The twin headlight treatment sits atop a similarly fang-like front, sweeping back over the four-door silhouette to reveal a familiar single line brake light treatment. If the Eletre had been sat on by something heavy, the Emeya is the result.