LOTUS EMIRA

This is a truly crucial coupé: Hethel’s final combustion-engined car, its first creation under Geely ownership and the replacement for not one but three models

- MIKE DUFF

TESTED 18.2.22, NORFOLK ON SALE SPRING PRICE £75,995

TESTER ’S NOTE Lotus has abandoned the option of 2+2 seating. The Evora was never capable of transporting anyone but the smallest of occupants in its rear. But the Emira still has a useful amount of space behind the seats to store bags and squashier items. And the 151-litre boot behind the engine can apparently take a set of golf clubs. MD

Lotus’s last new petrol-engined car must also be its most successful. The Emira is charged with replacing Lotus’s entire outgoing range – the Elise, Evora and Exige – but will need to reach greater heights than those cars ever did collectively.

Big money has been spent on fitting a new high-tech production line at Hethel – one that features autonomous sleds to move cars between work stations and which we’re told has been scaled to build up to 4500 cars per year. That’s a production figure Lotus hasn’t got close to since it was assembling the Vauxhall VX220/Opel Speedster alongside the still-fresh Elise S2 in the early noughties. With the need for revenue to help fund the forthcoming wave of pure-electric cars, the stakes couldn’t be higher.