http://www.leftlanenews.com/2006/09/26/lot...ing-to-america/

The British Automaker calls the car the "quickest Lotus production car ever made"

2057lbs
218hp S/C
0-60: 4.1

 

Nice. I don't understand though why are they monkeying around w/ a S/C to gain 20HP from previous powertrain. Just throw a tuned K20 engine in there and call it a day. Saves space and maintenance...

 

"The 148 mph car will be available for $56,900 "

na not that tough to resist

 

Hell....the plant in the RDX would work nice......hell

That crazy turbo 2.3 in the Mazdaspeed 6/3 would be a huge improvement. I'm sure Mazda would love to sell a few of those off the rack as they don't seem to be selling them in their cars!

 

Thats a sick little motor.

 

This is a toughie for me. On one hand... I have a house to buy, on the other a SC Exige. House or Exige... or maybe a Z06. That's what I'll get. These are too many choices; I should just drop the house from consideration right now.

 

Here is what I know.

Lotus needed an engine for this car when it was being redeveloped for the states. They needed an engine that was already certified in the US. They spoke to many manufacturers and got turned down. Manufacturers do not like to let other people use their engines and will not make deals with small niche players like Lotus. The CEO had a friend at Toyota from a previous collaboration between the two companies. I forget what the prior project is, but they had a history together. More to help out than anything else, Toyota was willing to produce and sell a volume of the current engines. I don't think Toyota or any other manufacturer wants to sell them different engines, and Lotus does not want to re-engineer the car for a different motor again.

 

I'm sure that Toyota had the capacity too since the Celica GT-S wasn't selling well, and not too many Matrix were optioned with their motor.

 

I'm sure you won't be able to get one for under $60k and they'll probably be limited in production.

 

I don't know... the version I heard was a matter of cost... that K20 is a little more expensive. The GT-S engine was further along in developement to use in Elise so they just stuck with it. I've driven GT-S and I am just not a big fan of its powertrain and gearbox. I am sure with either engine the Elise is a blast, but I guess I am just a glass-is-half-empty kinda guy.