Building on the heritage of the iconic Lotus Elise, the Emira represents a new era for Lotus with improvements in functionality, comfort and technology, and it’s a crucial reason why dealer readers AM voted for it to win the 2023 AM New Car of the Year Award.
It is Lotus’ most accomplished road car to date, balancing a high level of driver engagement with the practicality of an everyday sports car.
The Lotus Emira sports car has been developed on a new lightweight bonded aluminum chassis and is available with a choice of two mid-mounted petrol engines. From launch, the Emira was offered only as a limited production “First Edition” model, powered by the same 3.5-liter V6 as the brand’s Exige and Evora models.
Developing 400 hp, it is mated to a six-speed manual gearbox with a visible shift mechanism and hydraulic power steering.
A 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine from AMG, the performance division of Mercedes-Benz, will debut in the new Lotus sports car later this year.
Matt Windle, Managing Director of Lotus Cars, said: “The Emira is a game changer for Lotus. It stands as a beacon of everything we have achieved to date in transforming the business, the embodiment of our progress. This is a very important step on our path to becoming a truly global performance car brand. Emira’s launch coincided with the brand’s move to an agency agreement model with its retailers.
The changes are part of a Vision80 strategy which has brought the introduction of the £2million Evija hypercar, the introduction of a new retail corporate identity and the development of a new £100 million manufacturing plant at its Hethel headquarters and technology center in Warwick.
