Lotus has announced the end of production – and the building of the last units – of its Elise, Exige and Evora sports cars.

Between those three model lines, and over the course of 26 years, the company says a total of 51,738 cars will have come off the production line. Combined, they represent almost half of the total production of Lotus in its 73-year history (additionally, 9,715 sports cars were built for Lotus’ third-party clients, including GM and Tesla).

The current assembly lines are to dismantled and replaced with all-new state-of-the-art facilities in support of the all-new Emira factory. The Emira will be the last petrol-powered sports car to be built by Lotus and full production begins in the first half of 2022 spring, after the prototype and test phases currently underway are completed.

The Emira will be powered by a mid-mounted, 3.5-litre supercharged V6 developing 298kW. Top speed is 290km/h and the sprint to 100km/h can be done
in 4.3 seconds.

The last examples of the Elise, Exige and Evora models are to be reserved for Lotus’ heritage collection.

Joining the collection will be the last Elise, a Sport 240 Final Edition finished in Yellow and the last of 35,124 cars; the last Exige, a Cup 430 Final Edition in Heritage Racing Green and the last of 10,497; and the last Evora, a GT430 Sport finished in Dark Metallic Grey and the last of a production run of 6,117.

Lotus has shifted gears to focus on an all-electric future with the Evija hypercar.

It will be followed by the all-electric Type 132, Lotus’ first SUV, which is set to be unveiled in 2022.

Source: Motor Trader e-Magazine (February 2022) 

11 February 2022