Wheels Lotus Emira

from £60,000 / lotuscars.com

We drool all over the bonnet

Ah, Lotus – the car brand that refuses to give up.

Thought the Norfolk maker had checked out long ago? Fresh investment from China means it has a bright and majorly electrified future. But before we get to see a battery-powered Lotus SUV (yep, really) and the 2000bhp electric Evija hypercar, we’re being treated to one last naughty little petrol offering.

How little, exactly?

Weighing in at 1.4 tonnes, it does go against founder Colin Chapman’s philosophy of keeping mass to a minimum, but you’ll be able to have your Emira with a throaty 3.5-litre V6 that develops around 400bhp – and that requires room. There’ll be the option of a 2-litre four-cylinder turbo later.

Who’s behind that lush design? You can thank a chap with the most apt name in the automotive

industry: Russell Carr. He took lots of the great bits from the Evija, and used a metaphorical shrink-ray to scale it all down into something that can sit well on the shopping list of anyone in the market for a Jaguar F-type or Alpine A110. Our favourite bits are the whopping vents at the back. They’re there for purely aerodynamic reasons, of course.

Anything hi-tech going on inside? The Emira is largely a nod to Lotus’s analogue past, so there’s nothing to trouble Tesla in here. But you’ll get a sleek interior with carefully selected digital touches, including a touchscreen infotainment system and a modern cockpit with screen-based instrument binnacles. Oh, and there’s also an awesome but completely unnecessary protective red cover over the engine start/stop button… so you’ll feel like a fighter pilot when you pop to Asda.