Clarkson on the Evora

[mopho]

Jeremy Clarkson Lotus Evora 2+2 review | Driving - Times Online

Honda announced recently that it’s to stop making the drophead, two-seater S2000. And since this has always been my favourite small sports car, I thought I’d borrow one and go for one last, tearful drive.

God, it was horrible. There wasn’t enough room for even small parts of me to get comfortable. The digital instruments looked like they had come straight from a Nik Kershaw video. The plastics would have looked shoddy on an Ethiopian’s wheelie bin. It was as sparsely equipped as an Amish barn. And the noise. It was hip-hop horrendous. Conversation was impossible. Thought was impossible. It was the kind of relentless drone that, after a while, can drive a man mad.

So how come I used to love this car so much? It’s not like I’m talking here about meeting up with an old girlfriend. The Honda has not become fat and frumpy. It isn’t pushing a pram or wearing tweed instead of miniskirts. It’s not now married to a golfer called Colin. It’s exactly the same now as it was in 2005. And 2005 is not that long ago.

Except of course, in automotive terms, 2005 is somewhere between the big bang and the Norman conquests. And what was acceptable then — heavy steering, no sat nav, religious persecution and dinosaurs — is not acceptable any more.


Cars are not getting faster or more economical. But in terms of refinement and comfort, they are a country mile better than the cars you could buy as recently as a week ago last Tuesday. (Unless you have a Peugeot.)

This is great for us but it’s a big problem for Britain’s small car makers. Because in the olden days (1994), when all cars exploded every few minutes, you could have a Lotus or a TVR or a Morgan and it wasn’t that much different.

Today, though, as the big car companies churn out cars that have no transmission whine and never break down — Peugeot excepted — the offerings from a small car company look as out of date as a ruff. This is because small car companies have no robots. There isn’t the money for relentless testing of every component in every corner of the world. The car must be designed on an Amstrad and put together by a man in a brown store-coat. And saying a car is hand-built is just another way of saying the glove box lid won’t shut properly.

Take the Lotus Elise. It squeaks. It rattles. It drones. It vibrates. It’s hard to get into and impossible to get out of. It’s badly equipped and hard to operate. All of this might have been acceptable 13 years ago when the Elise first came out and it might be acceptable today if it were the last word in zip and vigour.

But it isn’t. Compared with even a Golf, it feels old and slow and understeery. It’s a 20th-century car in a 21st-century world where last Friday is already last year. And the last new car Lotus made, the Europa, was even worse.

That’s why I wasn’t looking forward to driving the new Evora. I knew it would smell of glue, give me cramp and fall to pieces, because Lotus, up there in the turnips, simply doesn’t have the sort of bang on, bang up to date production line that makes modern mass-produced cars such engineering marvels (except Peugeots, obviously).

I was in for a bit of a shock. No. I was in for a lot of a shock. I was in for so much of a shock, in fact, I had to have a little lie down.

First of all, the bad news. Because it was designed on an Amstrad in someone’s mum’s bedroom, there are mistakes. All you can see in the windscreen is a reflection of the dashboard and all you can see on the ancillary dials is a reflection of whatever weather happens to be prevailing at the time.

What’s more, the buttons are all carefully placed to ensure you can neither see nor find them. And even if you do, they have plainly been labelled by someone who was mad, or four.

Then you have the Alpine sat nav cum multimedia interface wotsit in the dash. Why didn’t Lotus develop its own box of tricks instead of fitting one that’s designed for youths in Citroën Saxos? Simple. It didn’t have the resources.

And so, you get a system that speaks. And what it says is: “You are breaking the speed limit”, every time you go near the throttle. This is very annoying, but happily there is a solution. Because it speaks only once, at the moment you stray over the limit, you should accelerate as quickly as possible to beyond the speed limit and then stay there all day.

The other solution is to turn it off. Which is impossible. Because I’m 49. And a man. So I won’t look things up in instruction books. Or listen to my wife, who said she knew how. Because I know best.

As you can see, then, the Evora features many things to cause much wailing and gnashing of teeth. So the car would have to be very good or very cheap to make those problems worth tolerating. And here’s the thing. It’s both. The 3.5-litre Toyota V6 is not the most powerful engine in the world but it’s smooth — and refined — and the power it produces is delightfully seamless. There’s no sudden savagery. No “Oh my God, I’m going to crash now”. It’s brilliant.

So’s the packaging. Normally, a mid-engined four-seater car looks all wrong. The Ferrari Mondial springs to mind here. But the Evora is bang on. It really is a genuine surprise when you’ve studied the nicely proportioned exterior to find there are two seats in the back. And a dribble of legroom, too, provided the driver isn’t too tall.

And speaking of tall, the front is a revelation. I could get in easily. I could get out without crawling. Inside, I didn’t even need to have the seat fully back. Anyone up to 6ft 7in is going to fit in an Evora and that alone makes it special.

Especially when I tell you the boot, which is at the back, where it should be, is big enough for two sets of golf clubs.

So, the driving. Sadly, I didn’t have much chance to really push it — the weather was horrendous and time was tight — but I put in enough miles to know this car has great steering and handles well. Of course it does. It’s a Lotus. And because it’s a Lotus, it’ll crash and jar and lurch from pothole to speed bump.

Wrong. It simply glided over absolutely everything a torrential rainstorm and Britain’s B roads could throw at it. There is no other mid-engined supercar that has ever been so compliant. Or refined. Or quiet. It’s amazing. It doesn’t feel like it was made in a shed in Norfolk. It feels like it was made yesterday, by a machine.

The Evora, then, is not a car you buy because it’s a Lotus and you have always fancied one. It’s a car you buy because you want a comfortable, practical, mid-engined supercar and no one else makes such a thing. Not Ferrari. Not Lamborghini. Not anyone.

As I wafted from corner to corner, gradually forgetting about the smell of the glue they used to hold the chassis together, and the reflections, and the silly sat nav, I started guessing how much this car might cost. I reckoned on somewhere around £60,000. I was wrong. It’s less than 50.

And that’s what makes this the most modern car of them all. It’s the first to come to the market with a deflationary price tag.

The Clarksometer

Lotus Evora 2+2

Engine 3456cc, six cylinders

Power 276bhp @ 6400rpm

Torque 252 lb ft @ 4700rpm

Transmission Six-speed manual

Fuel 32.5mpg (combined cycle)

CO2 205g/km

Acceleration 0-60mph: 4.9sec

Top speed 162mph

Price £49,875

Road tax band K (£215 a year)

On sale Now

Clarkson's verdict



A revelation - no really

.

[VisualEchos]

Refined, sure, but has it lost its "Lotusness?"

[BRTHTAKR]

Another chance to reopen the debate: just what is "Lotusness"?
To me, the later Europae, the Eclat, Elite and Esprit, were not all that raw.

[Monsi]

he called it a supercar... what does that make my exige

[mopho]

Originally Posted by BRTHTAKR

Another chance to reopen the debate: just what is "Lotusness"?
To me, the later Europae, the Eclat, Elite and Esprit, were not all that raw.

And by the same token, an Elise/Exige is not all that raw when compared a Seven, Eleven, 23, etc...

[bueno]

Originally Posted by BRTHTAKR

Another chance to reopen the debate: just what is "Lotusness"?
To me, the later Europae, the Eclat, Elite and Esprit, were not all that raw.

Compared to its competitors, it was "all that raw" but whether it was a good car, that's up for debate.

Originally Posted by mopho

And by the same token, an Elise/Exige is not all that raw when compared a Seven, Eleven, 23, etc...

True however, other than the Seven which I believe is street legal, the other two are not so it's apples and oranges imo.

[mopho]

Originally Posted by bueno

True however, other than the Seven which I believe is street legal, the other two are not so it's apples and oranges imo.

Except Lotus over the years has built more different model of race cars than street cars, so perhaps cushy street cars are not really what defines "Lotusness"


.

[bueno]

Originally Posted by mopho

Except Lotus over the years has built more different model of race cars than street cars, so perhaps cushy street cars are not really what defines "Lotusness"


.

I get what you mean but, obviously a Lotus race car will always be lighter compared to a street version as well as a Lotus street version car will typically be lighter than it's competitors-Lotus are light cars whether we're speaking street version or not. That being said, although Evora is lighter than it's competitors, I think they're pushing the envelope with "lightness" at a tick under 3k pounds

[mopho]

Originally Posted by bueno

I get what you mean but, obviously a Lotus race car will always be lighter compared to a street version as well as a Lotus street version car will typically be lighter than it's competitors-Lotus are light cars whether we're speaking street version or not. That being said, although Evora is lighter than it's competitors, I think they're pushing the envelope with "lightness" at a tick under 3k pounds

I wasn't referring to weight though, I was referring to "rawness". My point being that there really is no such thing as "lotusness" as they have made a wide variety of cars over the years, from race cars to luxury GT cars, so you really can't point at the Elige (as a minimalist car for the street/track) and say that is what "Lotusness" is supposed to be.

BTW Esprit V8 weighs a tick over 3000lbs and probably doesn't have anywhere near the safety engineering that is in the Evora.

[def]

Well, of course it is less raw than an elise/exige. More weight, cushier ride, even has assisted steering! I'm just hoping it is somewhere between an elise and a 911, in terms of "pureness"

[VisualEchos]

Originally Posted by mopho

My point being that there really is no such thing as "lotusness"...

Oh I think there is, maybe not as clearly-defined as we would want it to be, but Lotus cars have usually been "different", and easily identifiable, much like a Ferrari or a Porsche.

Originally Posted by mopho

...as they have made a wide variety of cars over the years, from race cars to luxury GT cars, so you really can't point at the Elige (as a minimalist car for the street/track) and say that is what "Lotusness" is supposed to be.

I think "Lotusness" is different for each person, but we might all agree that we don't want the car to feel like anything else. I remember driving an '89 Elan and being so disappointed that it had lost that Lotus feel.

[dickedup]

Originally Posted by BRTHTAKR

Another chance to reopen the debate: just what is "Lotusness"?

To me, the later Europae, the Eclat, Elite and Esprit, were not all that raw.

Pretty much everything Lotus built up to the Esprit was Old School Lotusness at it's zenith. All vehicles after the Esprit should be considered the post-modern New School.

How to tell the difference? If you don't have blooded knuckles, some grease under a finger or two, and a shoebox choke full of Import Auto Parts receipts... you are definitely of the New School!

Questions?

[DeanG]

Originally Posted by dickedup

Pretty much everything Lotus built up to the Esprit was Old School Lotusness at it's zenith. All vehicles after the Esprit should be considered the post-modern New School.

How to tell the difference? If you don't have blooded knuckles, some grease under a finger or two, and a shoebox choke full of Import Auto Parts receipts... you are definitely of the New School!

Questions?

+1 although I would place the Esprit S1 & S2 in the old school. Maybe we can call them transition models. Oh, and I am still recovering from yesterday's wrenching on the Seven. Today I will drive the M100 today and all will be well.

[Uncle Sam]

I had an Amstrad word processor in the early 1980s and it worked great. You didn't have to be a computer programmer to use it. I would liken it to a Lotus Seven; it was simple and it did what it needed to do.

[mopho]

Originally Posted by VisualEchos

Oh I think there is, maybe not as clearly-defined as we would want it to be, but Lotus cars have usually been "different", and easily identifiable, much like a Ferrari or a Porsche.

And Toyota, and BMW, and GM and ....

I think "Lotusness" is different for each person, but we might all agree that we don't want the car to feel like anything else. I remember driving an '89 Elan and being so disappointed that it had lost that Lotus feel.

And what other Lotus have you driven? The Elise drives much different than vintage Lotus cars, so perhaps one could say that the Elise lost it's "Lotusness"

[Bavarian Motorist]

Glad to hear it handles well and has good steering.... Too bad it's too slow for my tastes

[VisualEchos]

Originally Posted by mopho

And what other Lotus have you driven?

Several Esprit's, and a Seven.

[dickedup]

Originally Posted by VisualEchos

Several Esprit's, and a Seven.

Owned a Seven myself many moons ago.

[BUELL XB12R]

Although I think Clarkson is hilarious, I don't believe a word he says about cars. He will say a car is great in one review, and in the next review he will say the same car is crap just to make that particular review sound more interesting. So I would take this review with a grain of salt. I think he is a great comedian, but horrible at reviewing cars.

[Cardinal]

Originally Posted by BUELL XB12R

Although I think Clarkson is hilarious, I don't believe a word he says about cars. He will say a car is great in one review, and in the next review he will say the same car is crap just to make that particular review sound more interesting. So I would take this review with a grain of salt. I think he is a great comedian, but horrible at reviewing cars.

I've thought that myself, once or twice.