CAN LOTUS EMULATE PORSCHE’S EXAMPLE?

JUST THREE WEEKS after our first verdict on the brilliant new Lotus Emira sports car, we bring you news of another remarkable leap forward for a Norfolk firm that, until its current owners arrived, had spent much of its recent history in survival mode.

It is not hyperbole to brand the Eletre (see p4) as the most radical Lotus ever made. It isn’t a sports car, supercar or even a saloon or coupé, but an SUV. Such a model from Lotus would be radical enough on its own but – bombshell number two – this is an SUV that’s electric powered. It’s a big, family-friendly SUV at over five metres long, and it’ll be built not at Hethel but in China. Ready for a lie down?

Lotus enters true unknown territory with the Eletre. Yet while the car opens up the brand to a whole new audience, Lotus is not leaving behind what has made it so special with its driver’s sports cars, as the Emira shows.

That the Emira and Eletre arrive so close together is a statement of the two-pronged Lotus we can expect in the future: a maker of more usable cars with much broader appeal that are still rooted in the firm’s dynamic DNA, alongside a range of ever-better sports cars to give the brand a halo effect.

Which sounds a lot like Porsche… And there are worse brands to emulate.