New Lotus Esprit revealed

The New Lotus Esprit

We’ve been banging on that the new Lotus Esprit would turn up at the Paris Motor Show forever. It seemed the most logical step, but then Lotus went and shoved a spanner in the works a couple of weeks back by revealing the new Lotus Elite. So we thought that would be the powder spent for Paris. Not a bit of it.

The new Lotus Esprit will in fact be the first Lotus of the ‘New’ Lotus – the East Anglian Aston Martin under the stewardship of ex-Ferrari man Dany Bahar – and should arrive by 2013 at something over £100k.

The New Esprit will get a supercharged version of the 5.0 litre Lexus V8 (which may answer a question on the Elite’s powerplant) with either 550bhp or 620bhp. That will drive the power to the rear wheels through a seven-speed padlle shift ‘box.

Just like the spec on the Elite, the Esprit will get a KERS system and be able to get to 60mph in around 3 seconds in 620bhp spec. It will also manage to emit just 250g/km CO2, a remarkably low emissions rate for such a powerful car.

But this new Lotus Esprit isn’t going to be quite the fibreglass lightweight of old. It weighs in at a decent, but not remarkable, 1495kg

This is just phase one of plans by Lotus to go from a loss-making sub 3000 cars a year – and all sub £50k – to making over 6,000 cars averaging around £100k.

Big plans.

By Cars UK