Lotus promises it will produce the fastest and most agile SUV
British automaker Lotus is the latest — and possibly most surprising — automaker to jump on the SUV bandwagon.
Speaking with Top Gear, chief executive Jean- Marc Gales recently dished more details over Lotus’s upcoming SUV. He said it will be assembled in China under an agreement with Goldstar Heavy Industrial and he promised driving characteristics that stay true to Lotus’s sports cars.
“If Colin Chapman was alive, I believe he would have done one,” Gales said, referring to Lotus’s founder.
“It will be the size of a Porsche Macan, but only 1,600 kilograms, and will be the most agile and the fastest of that class on a track.”
Keeping weight down is one of the biggest challenges for Lotus. Thankfully, Gales said, the company can keep the SUV slim by using a fourcylinder engine and smaller brakes than those used on its sports cars, as well as the Evora’s lightweight seats.
To say Lotus needs the SUV to be profitable is an understatement. The SUV will be limited to the Chinese market when it launches in 2019 or 2020, and if it sells well, Lotus will offer it in Europe as early as 2022.
Gales said that although the SUV will be assembled in China, all of the development was done in England, including design, engineering and prototyping.
“We are evaluating two fullscale design models at the moment,” he said. “They are very sporty and they look very Lotus. They have a modern Lo- tus nose and a hint of the 1974 four- seat Elite on the side. They look lightweight.”
Whether or not the Lotus SUV will still be lightweight when it goes into production remains to be seen. We’ll know for sure in a few years, if the project comes to fruition.