Lotus Evora 400

[Kim.com]

Clearly Luxemburger!

[diego]

a Luxemburger ! ah thats ok then, happy days   

[Arregueti]

I do happen to live in Luxembourg, actually...

 

The demonym is Luxembourger but every one here says Luxembourgish (blame it on a poor English). Their language is a dialect based on German. Actually, they are (at least) trilingual almost all of them, being fluent in Luxembourgish, German and French. Which explains all the accents (or lack thereof)

 

White wine is (reasonably) good, fuel is cheap(ish) and we live one hour away from Spa and Nordschleife, four hours away from the Alps and twenty minutes away from the Autobahn...

 

With around 75% of its surface covered by forests and water, and an amazing network of B-roads, it could be called Lotusland...

 

You are all most welcome to spend some time here in one of your trips to the Nordschleife...

[diego]

arregueti

 

talking about wine and roads, been to quite a few wine festivals in lux. got quite a few friends and colleges over there, one with a blue AC Cobra lol ! 

[Arregueti]

Hi Diego,

 

There is indeed a big car culture here. This is not central London but you do see Lamborghinis, Cobras and other exotica quite often here (or people doing the sunday shopping in a Ferrari 308).

 

If you enjoy wine and happen to be around this area I would suggest to try the German "Eiswein" or similar "Vendanges tardives" in French. It is the northern European reply to those Portos and Jerez that you enjoy so much in the UK. Probably you know them, though.

 

Sorry for going offtopic. I was just trying to build JMG's credibility as a car nut!

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

I sold my Subaru 22B to a guy from Luxembourg in 2010. Have you ever seen it? I think he had an Integrale EVO in his collection as well.

[Arregueti]

No, but I will look for it.    It is gorgeous! 

 

Subarus, EVOS and Integrales are quite popular here, too. The current German WRC event is around the corner (in Trier).

[Al]

Well the LEGS contingent of about 12-15 of us descended yesterday.  Very underwhelmed and for me one huge failing was the god awful colour chosen for the Evora 400 launch.  This is not the 'naughties' where 2 out of 3 cars bought were silver.  I remember the original Evora launch in 2008 and what was it again..... oh yes, boring bloody silver. Call it what shade of silver you want, still bloody silver.

 

Yesterday going round the show there was every colour imaginable on stands but darkish reds and whites standing out in large numbers.  Especially on performance models. Also a huge number of matt's seem to be 'in' for the show and for the first time not just dark colours which I general don't like in matt but a huge colour range.  Very nice in some of the lighter shades and it really does show up lines and such like much better.  Even if it never became a production colour so what.  The silver does the Evora few favours yesterday IMHO and it would have looked much more "buy me" in another combo .  The car was a prototype so not finally producing the colour shown wouldn't have mattered and the local stand staff didn't even really want us in the car touching and feeling things and telling us not production ready.  (Not the only manufacturer doing that - I was surprised I could't get to sit in a new MX-5 for one of my sons as well)

 

As a serial Evora owner I was about 50:50 on it overall having read everything on here before going.  A new Evora model?  No.  A mid life facelift with improved engine? Yes.  Definitely easier to get in and out of and that is where a lot of the £££ will have gone no doubt on a minimal budget.  Dash architecture nicer (as long as that hideous & completely pointless LOTUS goes from dash top).  I just really hope they have considered the antenna/ariel installation as well because a car in this price bracket needs ICE to work properly when out in the sticks and all 4 of mine have been effectively somewhere between crap and useless.  Seats may be lighter but didn't feel any better and bits were falling off them after a week of show goers.  Back seats may be bigger but if not told, I'd never have known.  At a personal level I think they have ruined the look of the rear spoiler because felt compelled to tamper. That back bit serves no purpose what so ever.  Hopefully the change of tyres will have them lasting more than 5 minutes but without loss of feel and grip.

 

Front and rear changes split the group although proper DRL's at least a good thing.  All this sounds a bit negative but not really meant to be, but am I rushing to dealer today to place deposit?  Nope.  I'll be waiting for the targa/roadster to follow hopefully this time next year and meanwhile I'll still be happy with my S and it will not look that different or older model thankfully.  Doing a 911/Boxster/Cayman is a good thing there. 

 

However to finish on a positive we had my mate with us in our group who is a pork lover has been out with me plenty and knows my car out drives most Porkers he has had but has always been sceptical about the build quality of our favourite brand.  (Poor man have sympathy for him spending 18 hours in our company extracting the urine) He was very positive about the 400 from a number of perspectives and thought it was a £80K car if properly built.  After all the discussion on here and elsewhere from many people who are not probably in a position to be the first time buyers of these cars, but still discussing the price point in detail that is the type of comments we need to hear.  We don't need existing Lotus owners to think well priced or not because we will not be enough to keep the the marque alive to survive .  We need new blood to the marque even if only as posers and fleeting buyers of the latest unusual thing because that will generate the funds required as a business and leave the 2nd hand buyers stock in due course.

[NedaSay]

So Bibs, you know what you have to do, lobby JMG and the higher ups in Hethel for  bright colors on the next show car... The Evora looks dashing in white I don't know why they haven't gone with that actually,

 

The next show car should be the roadster so there's no point not going bright and shiny with that one. JMG introduced himself to the media, so no point in him being the spoke-person again, and a booth with more gusto, dare I say, get the Paris 2010 booth out of storage, it has only been used once and should be used a lot more to generate the positive return on investment that this thing did cost.

 

I watched the Harry Metcalfe Diary today he spent less than 10" at the booth, the refresh however good it can be is just a refresh for most of the media, at least that's what I can infer from the Brit centric vloggers.  

 

The other mission JMG has is to keep Lotus in the media. The Geneva 2015 was a semi failure or semi victory, but there's a clear need to reconquer the british media quickly, it looks like the french media were warmer to the car than the brit themselves, that's nonsense. 

[Stuno1]

What's wrong with a refresh??? That's what pork do.

Was it routed as a all new Evora?

Stu

[Bibs]

Title and first line of the official press release:

 

The all new Lotus Evora 400

·   All new supercar from Lotus

[Stuno1]

As it's the same model I am not sure what people are expecting, it has fairly substantial changes to the model!

[Bibs]

40% of the parts have been updated, it's a little more than a facelift but not a new model. I'd not think it will ever be referred to as an 'S2' for example.

[TBD]

It would be interesting to know how they came to the 40%. I can't imagine it to be based off of the parts list, as at least 50% of that is probably standard parts like screws, washers, etc. If you deduct those then 40% would have meant 80% of non-standard parts - and that is in no way imaginable.

 

Unless they decided to give those M8x40 standard screws a new part number and counted them in.

[NedaSay]

Well let's consider the visible stuff other than the chassis (central tub) which is brand new.  The front and rear bumpers are new, the wing mirrors are new the rear wing is new, the diffuser is new but looks not that different from the previous one. The front and rear subframes are the old ones, the bonnet, roof, windshield, doors, rear and side windows are carried over. The interior is mostly new: seats (front and rear), door panels, dashboard... But most bits and knobs are carried over and cleverly reassembled. The front and rear lights are carried over except for the new DRLs. In the engine bay, the engine is the same except for the ECU and the bigger supercharger, newer mounting points and the new engine cover... The gearboxes are carried over except for the new flywheel and the LSD ; the suspensions are the same, only the stiffer springs are new ; the brakes are upgraded but only the braking discs are new. The grey color is not that different from the grey used to showcase the Evora back at its big unveil in '08. So yeah 40% seems like an accurate number.

 

They should have emphasized the evolution of Evora not the fact that it was a brand new supercar, that's a PR cock up imo.

 

Yes, Porsche does that all the time but they generally manage to make the visible changes quite noticeable. Still I want to believe that the 400 will be a success for Lotus, when people get to test the car it will be quite a stunner especially if the come in bright colours. That's the other thing thought, they only brought a functional preproduction demonstrator at the show while Porsche had show cars and whole bunch of press cars available for the media to play with, in the days before and after the events in order to get the media fired up... Lotus did not/could not do that.

 

Then the competition for the limelight was always going to be difficult, I mean, the line up was epic: new 911 GT3 RS, new Cayman GT4, new 488 GTB, new 675 LT, new Vantage GT3 and Vulcan, new Regera, new Aventador SV... Even the new NSX got upstaged something fierce, not a word on the Ford GT either when it was its big euro unveil and the the concepts from Bentley and Aston where not to shabby either... 

Edited March 11, 2015 by NedaSay

[series_one]

Rear subframe is new.  And imo is the most interesting change.

[diego]

Title and first line of the official press release:

 

The all new Lotus Evora 400

·   All new supercar from Lotus

 

personally i don't like the approach JMG is taking here.

 

1) 40% new means all new (you can pull that stunt if the car looks significantly different - my understanding is it looks like a face-lift and 40% doesn't mean all new in my maths) 

 

2) 'the evora400 will be the fastest car on track sub £100k' (no way a gt4 will be a lot quicker if the evora400 is as quick as an exige v6 round hethel) 

 

3) He claims that the Lotus tub is just five kilos heavier than the Alfa 4C's carbonfibre structure (there are so many holes in that argument i dont know where to begin) 

 

4) a new lotus "it will be the fastest road car around the Nürburgring," (the stuff of crystal balls again) 

 

hes making himself quite a target for the likes of hacks that don't particularly like lotus but that make the market - JC and monkey boy for starters and i dont think the Co needs that at all....  

 

i think you can take this approach IF you have the product but so far im not completely convinced he does.... 

[The Pits]

Agreed he needs to qualify his remarks more clearly and not set the car up for a fall.

 

However I don't believe that the Cayman GT4 will be a lot quicker than an Evora 400, I would be amazed if its any quicker at all. The proof will be in the pudding on that one. However, 'fastest sub £100k on track' statement is nonsense, it's not even the fastest sub £100k Lotus on track!

 

Even if JMG doesn't consider the Caterham 7, Ariel Atom, BAC Mono, Radical et al to be proper cars but the Nissan GTR sure as hell is! Lotus developed that too!

[Kimbers]

Saw it in the flesh. I must say that as a Lotus owner, previously, and a potential new customer, it was bloody hard to get on the stand! When we went there, there were 3 girls behind the desk. The rope was across and there were no staff on the stand to manage it. They were all behind the walls in the office and couldn't even see the stand. The girls were chatting to each other and totally ignored me.

 

I asked about getting to look at it and the girl had to go and get permission. No one looked at me and I was told I could look at it but not touch it or sit in it. Myself and my 2 colleagues, who between us buy thousands of cars a year professionally, all looked at each other and laughed. I said I was a potential customer and would really like to sit in it...again, off she trotted and came back. I could sit in the passenger side. "this is a one off prototype" I was told by the young lady. "No it isn't" I said.

 

It was at this point I nearly walked away until my colleague said "Tony is a Lotus man and has owned several and is a genuine buyer". This is crazy...."Can I talk to someone from Lotus?" I asked. And at last had some interaction from a very nice French man who had been with Lotus for years.

 

Now, I never dropped the "Don't you know who my dad is?" ball until I gave him my business card and he looked at it, and I may have mentioned that I want the Evora because it was on of my dads last cars at the company.

 

But I feel that many people would have been turned off by this treatment, general lack of knowledge by the girls on the desk and lack of availability to actually touch and feel the products. It was much easier to get on the Bentley, Aston and even Lambo stands (But I did know one of the guys there).

 

At least I got a feel of the car enough to know I want one.  

[Stuno1]

That the kind of pony mistakes they need to weed out. They really should be better prepared and supported at such a prestigious event.

Stu

[Bibs]

That's been fed back, hopefully they'll be more helpful to others from now. It's not the right impression to make. 

[Kimbers]

Thanks bud. I agree.

[Al]

When the LEGS contingent of about 12 turned up Brandon 'our' salesman from MMC was already on stand talking to a local salesman.  It may have meant the access was easier as I'm sure he will have indicated how many new Lotus had been owned by the group.  However after about 3 of us sat in the drivers seat we also got the prototype nonsense and the drivers door was locked.  Passenger access only.  This may have been to do with the recline knob coming off the drivers seat.  Not a Lotus item obviously but doesn't bode well for the lighter Sparco seats.  However as the stand was being manned by the local dealer by then I guess they might have felt over protective of the 400 being left in their care and didn't want to hand it back broken.  I guess the prototype story will pacify most punters unless a knowledgeable bunch like us.

 

As far as access to each car was concerned we had people sat in just about every make and model there inc. McLaren and Lambo.

 

Does anybody else get a vibe from McLaren that they are like Lotus of old?  Well engineered cars made by enthusiasts for drivers?  Even the vibe I'm sure a driver of one will get will be more akin to what we get as Lotus drivers rather than the Fezza/Lambo/Porker response which isn't generally so pleasant.

[21gg]

I pre arranged our visit on saturday so had no trouble getting on the stand or sitting in the car. They did seem very protective of it never the less.

We blagged onto several other high end stands and the nicest attitiude by far was McLaren. Aston Martins was crap despite having invites!

 

Gav

[Bazza 907]

A few guys in our office have been invited to try out the McLaren 650S. They got invited to a nice hotel somewhere, breakfast, drive, chat, nice buffet lunch then home. McLaren who run a few of these events said that they appreciate that probably few if any people on the day will part with £250k to buy a car but it's about building the brand awareness etc.

 

I've just been invited to a similar sort of day by Maserati who said that in addition to a road test they'd let you loose on a local test track for a bit of fun too.

 

It's the sort of thing that appeals to many potential premium car buyers and something that I think Lotus should try to replicate rather than trying to put off potential customers as Tony highlighted above.