The Lotus Emira Closes a Gas-Powered Chapter with Grace and Style
The Emira is the last of the gas-powered Lotuses, and a fitting offering from this celebrated British automaker.
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In this era of electric, many
car brands
have committed to phasing out their gas-powered fleets. Jaguar, Bentley, Volvo, Volkswagen, and GM
are among the big names that intend to spend the next decade electrifying their products. Boutique automakers have followed suit. British sports carmaker Lotus is ready to take the electric plunge, but not without one last hurrah.
Jerry
, your favorite super car app
, looks at the Lotus Emira, the final petrol–fueled offering from the brand.A driver’s brand
Since its beginnings in 1948 in England, Lotus has built a particular kind of car. Founder Colin Chapman, a racing fan, was focused on speed, lightness, and handling—and this became his brand’s creed. Lotus churned out a series of lightweight production sports cars, to varying degrees of success, and built up a cult following along the way.
One member of this cult is avowed car obsessive Jay Leno. In a 2021 installment of “Jay Leno’s Garage,” he reviews the 2020 Lotus Evora GT, one of the brand’s classic lightweight sports cars. Leno calls the Evora a “driver’s car”—automatic wings to the marketing person who came up with the Lotus tagline “For the drivers”—and praises its pristine handling.
He notes that driving a Lotus may not necessarily earn you the prestige points of being behind the wheel of, say, a Lamborghini. But if you are pure of heart and seek only the best driving experience, a Lotus will never let you down.
Admiring the Emira
The Emira, which is slated to debut in late 2022, treads (lightly, comme des Lotuses) in the legacy of its forerunners. This sports car, says
Car and Driver
, is good-looking inside and out, with a comfortable and intuitive interior framed by an aerodynamic, sophisticated body. Reviewers appreciated the performance of the supercharged V6 version they tested, calling it “muscular throughout the range.”But the real head-turning quality of the Emira, for Car and Driver, is its refusal to capitulate to the modern era’s hand-holding. Lotus, true to form, built a car that gives drivers the upper hand—minimal active or adaptive systems are in place, so the quality of your drive is really your responsibility.
Jay Leno, on the Evora episode of “Jay Leno’s Garage,” shared this appreciation for the Lotus commitment to the (mostly) old-school, noting that the shifting is super responsive, there’s no cheating via hypercar turbocharger, and getting heat or air is a button push, not a whole discussion with a chatbot.
Two passengers inside an Emira can enjoy 400 hp and 310 lb-ft of torque. Car and Driver confirmed that the First Edition Emira V6 will cost $96,100 and we’ll see it in the U.S. later in 2022.
Looking to the future
It looks like the last of the gas-powered Lotus offerings will remain true to its roots. Praised by Car and Driver for that Lotus specialty—its handling—it will fit right into a long line of well-appointed lightweight British sports cars.
But if you’re already over the gas chapter of car history, you can skip ahead and check out the $2 million Evija, Lotus’s totally absurd electric hypercar, or wait for the arrival of Type 132, Lotus’s first electric SUV. And with the Emira, this British automaker still has something for everyone.
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