they might sell 1000 then

 

I think the Lotus engineer in the video gives away pricing when he says they think it will sit between the Cayman and the 911.

So, pricey for the bhp on offer, but then Lotus don't go for headline power figures. Whether or not that will matter depends on whether the buyers they hope to tempt with this car think bhp is an issue or not.

Then there's the reliability issue. My Exige has been pretty reliable so far - a couple of blown relays and that's it. But it's the result of nearly 10 years of customer development, the S1 I had was not so good. When the S1 was launched however, you couldn't get near the overall package by buying anythng similar, so the Elise was forgiven a lot of it's shortcomings, plus it's geneally a second car.

But this is a GT car - a usable everyday proposition. At

 

Top gear magazine review says exactly what we all expect.

Power is a little low
Interior not as good as the similarly priced competition
Handling is god-like and makes up for the other shortfalls.
So a little more power required and a tweak on the interior and all will be well

 

I think that apart from the weight/complexity saving the advantage is partially the e-diff's switchability; after all, tractors and the like have for years used twin brake pedals as a super-controllable LSD!

 

[QUOTE=MarkB,May 11 2009, 10:03 AM] I think the Lotus engineer in the video gives away pricing when he says they think it will sit between the Cayman and the 911.

So, pricey for the bhp on offer, but then Lotus don't go for headline power figures. Whether or not that will matter depends on whether the buyers they hope to tempt with this car think bhp is an issue or not.

Then there's the reliability issue. My Exige has been pretty reliable so far - a couple of blown relays and that's it. But it's the result of nearly 10 years of customer development, the S1 I had was not so good. When the S1 was launched however, you couldn't get near the overall package by buying anythng similar, so the Elise was forgiven a lot of it's shortcomings, plus it's geneally a second car.

But this is a GT car - a usable everyday proposition. At

 

I didn't think about it like that

Less complexity = cheaper to manufacture?

 

it needs to have more than 'God-like handling' to sell more than a handful

I'm not interested in it and have no bias

But I assume Lotus do and have

Worth a try I suppose

 

MQ and I have been invited to Norfolk to test drive the new Evora on the 5th June as she has owned a couple of Loti in the past. We'll let you know how we get on. I won't try and compare it with the S or a Porsche or any vehicle for that matter as it seems to make people cross

Really looking forward to it

 

We will definitely need pictures of that!!