The Emira is a sports car with supercar styling.Mark Hacking/The Globe and Mail
The last time I drove a Lotus was in 2011, when the British sports-car maker was owned by Malaysia’s Proton and the car in question was the Evora S. At the time, the car seemed a reasonable performer, but its Toyota engine and transmission did not help from an image perspective. The shape was exotic, but some of the hardware was pedestrian.
Fair or not, the connection diminished the car.
Fast-forward 15 years and Lotus is now controlled by China’s Geely Holding, with Malaysia’s Etika Automotive owning the remaining 49 per cent, and the Evora has given way to the Emira. This car is very much a direct descendant: the same basic mid-engine formula, the same supercharged Toyota V6 in this version and the same suspicion that Lotus engineers view comfort as a secondary consideration.
This time around, though, the Toyota engineering was welcome.
The years between my Lotus drives have been filled with countless SUVs and crossovers, a wave of electrified vehicles and a steady parade of continuously variable and automatic transmissions. Against that backdrop, the Emira seemed like a genuine novelty: an internal-combustion sports car with supercar styling, hydraulic steering and a six-speed manual transmission.
In the Emira, the seating position is excellent and the controls are close.Mark Hacking/The Globe and Mail
But first impressions, it must be said, were not great.
The 405 freeway north of Los Angeles International Airport was being resurfaced, bit by bit. In sections, the top layer of tarmac had been peeled off, leaving grooves that caught the front tires and pulled the car off line. The steering darted this way and that. Then, frequent undulations sent the short-wheelbase Lotus light over its suspension. Driving the Emira was like riding a wild stallion, only with concrete barriers and traffic on all sides.
Both hands were required on the steering wheel, partly because the Emira communicated everything happening beneath it and partly because it seemed ready to veer into the nearest abutment if I stopped paying attention. The car was alive, absolutely, but not always in the most reassuring way.
After half an hour behind the wheel, though, the argument began to swing in the Lotus’s favour.
The moment the 405 improved, the nervousness became precision. The steering never stopped reporting what was happening at the front tires, and the body remained composed. Then, on the mountain passes leading toward the coast in Malibu, the car changed direction immediately, pivoting precisely around its centre point. The brakes were equally direct and the balance never felt contrived. There seemed to be no layers of electronics disguising what the chassis was doing – or what the driver had done wrong.
The 3.5-litre V6 in this version of the Emira produces 400 horsepower. The engine is neither new nor exotic, but it responds cleanly, sounds proper and suits the car. The manual transmission demands effort, which is precisely the point. The cabin is also a marked improvement over past efforts – the seating position is excellent, the controls are close and the interior feels considered rather than assembled around whatever parts happened to fit. The bar set by the Evora may not have been high, but the Emira easily clears it.
When the car debuted in 2021, Lotus billed it as its last gas-powered sports car, setting a course to become an all-electric brand by 2028. So why revisit a vehicle unveiled five years ago? Because the context surrounding the Emira has changed and Lotus has shifted with it. Focus 2030, the corporate reset announced by Lotus brass earlier this year, calls for a mix of battery-electric, plug-in hybrid and gas-powered vehicles, while confirming the continuation of the Emira.
That reset is already in motion. The Emira 420 Sport is scheduled to reach customers soon with a 420-horsepower turbocharged four-cylinder engine mated to an eight-speed dual-clutch transmission. A plug-in-hybrid version of the Eletre SUV and a future hybrid-V8 supercar are also part of the plan.
For the Emira, at least, the reason for continuing with internal combustion is straightforward.
“As long as our community continues to ask for the character, the sound and the mechanical intimacy that only a combustion engine can deliver, we will keep engineering it,” said Massimiliano Trantini, president and chief executive officer of Lotus Cars Americas, in an e-mail. “That is not nostalgia; that is a promise.”
The Emira comes with a six-speed manual transmission.Mark Hacking/The Globe and Mail
Beneath the shifter, you can see the shift linkage through a mesh cover.Mark Hacking/The Globe and Mail
The challenge for Lotus will be carrying that exact character into heavier, more complicated vehicles. Trantini argues that the power source itself is less important than the sensations it produces.
“We do not chase headline numbers; we engineer feelings,” he said. “Whether the powertrain is internal combustion, hybrid or fully electric is, in a sense, a secondary conversation. What matters is that each one, in its own architecture, delivers the same signature Lotus sensation.”
That’s an ambitious proposition, particularly when electrification tends to add mass and Lotus founder Colin Chapman’s most enduring instruction was to simplify and add lightness. For now, the Emira remains the clearest expression of that philosophy and a useful benchmark for everything the company plans to build next.
So, the strategy may have changed, but the product makes the case. The Emira is distinctive, entertaining and different from most other performance cars on the road today. As such, its premium price tag comes as no real surprise. Lotus Canada currently lists available V6 models from $142,825, before adding the options that have a way of attaching themselves to low-volume sports cars.
On the peeled-back sections of the 405, the Lotus Emira was borderline a nuisance. In the hills in and around Malibu, it was brilliant. By the end of the day, the Toyota connection was no longer a negative – it was an absolute strength, the kind of strength needed to hold onto the steering wheel.
The mid-engine 3.5-litre V6 in this version of the Emira produces 400 horsepower.Mark Hacking/The Globe and Mail
The writer was a guest of the automaker. Content was not subject to approval.
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