The Evora 400 Diaries

[Clive59]

57 minutes ago, JayEmm said:

Being hand built appeals to me too, but it can not and should not be used as an excuse. The cameras used by film production companies at the highest end are hand made and feature components with tolerances in the microns - but they are assembled properly because they are checked and measured at each stage.

Get a few Japanese production engineers into Hethel, that might do it? That is one thing they do VERY well.

[C8RKH]

Don't have to be Japanese to be good. Get Barry in their as a Consultant, I'm sure he'll sort them out trained or not. Bit of common sense and pragmatism.

Just don't tell 'em you've got a knackered V8 Barry.

[PaulCP]

7 hours ago, JayEmm said:

Paul, Lotus had a quick look this morning and advised me a new seal would be required as they are only meant for one use only.

Maybe, but repositioned mine a few months ago and all is well .

Plus it took less than 3 minutes of my time rather than another long round trip to a dealer 

[JayEmm]

It's going in for a service soon Paul so it will be done at the same time. I am not spending my own time finishing Lotus ' work for them, I could have got a knackered V8 if I wanted to work on it myself! 

[Royal]

James, this won't be any consolation, but the other day I was looking at a F430 Scuderia on a 58 plate. (It was being serviced by a friend)  The fit and finish was atrocious for a £250,000  car, or thereabouts.

Huge door gaps everywhere. Misaligned panels. Crooked seals, loose rear outer light. Very poor paint. Unevenly fitted bodywork. Guess all the money is for the engine and sound.

My S4S is perfect in comparison.

 

Martin.

 

 

 

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[DJW]

The Scud has doubled in value in the last 2 years .  Go figure 

Ferarri are at the pinnacle of how you can take the Michael with value for money, but they have one of the best marketing teams in the world and similar excellence in controlling residual values.  If only Lorus had access to that marketing team 

[Bibs]

A TLFer has a Scud and 360 CS. He's made about £250k on the pair of them in the year he's owned them and the CS is even worse than the Scud. It's got rivet tails lacquered into the interior!

 

[Arregueti]

11 minutes ago, DJW said:

If only Lorus had access to that marketing team 

Well, they tried and hired someone from there, but it did not work according to plans...

Different beasts, different jockeys... It is probably Fiat's money that helped the most, anyway.

[JayEmm]

The 360 is not much better put together than the 355, neither of them take abuse well - I have seen great examples and poor examples. 

The 430 is miles ahead, at least the standard car, but there are still things in it that are just not cool for a car costing 135k+ new. Look at the window switches in a 430 -they are no better than the ones in an Elise!

[phil flash]

Maybe the quality would be better if Lotus used roberts on the assembly line ...

 

 

[C8RKH]

Part of me is quite sad that the discussion is about aesthetics etc. Surely what is at least or of more importance is how a sports car feels, drives and how it makes you feel.

Ferrari also has a huge history which is used in a very positive way. Lotus has a huge history true it is just not used as effectively. 

Ferrari have spent many years cultivating their heritage, feeding and nurturing it.

Lotus cannot even turn out a decent website. They do however produce exquisite drivers cars.

[JayEmm]

I think with any sports car the thing which first draws you in is the looks of the thing.

Ferrari 's marketing is interesting. They are a huge brand, I suppose the cars and the F1 team ARE their marketing. I think they are really diluting their own brand though - Ferrari world etc...

I suppose it is necessary to have all that stuff though if they want their core products to remain "exclusive"

[Clive59]

Something can be functional and work well, but to make it right to us humans, it is a combination of functionality and looking right. Everyone has opinions on 'what' looks right, but as a general rule, nice things that work well, really have had a huge amount of time spent on them to make them look like they should have always looked like that, an effortless and seemingly obvious solution to a problem which can't have been that difficult, can it?

As an engineer, I have to make things work, and a lot of effort goes into that, but so does making it look right, so yes, I think aesthetics do matter a lot, it makes huge difference, but so does the engineering, and making it work right, and elegantly, and manufacturable, and repeatable and reliable, and looking great is the aim. It is of course the law of diminishing returns, and trade-offs, and a small company has limited resources. But as my old man always said, 'attention to detail is the key'

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

Let's say Lotus makes 2000 cars during a working year of say 250 days. That's 8 per day. Surely they have enough Quality Control staff to manage that? If not, hire a couple more: they'll soon pay for themselves. Nothing should leave the factory with an identifiable defect. A good visual once-over under the bright lights, final check of all the electrics and interior and a handful of laps of the track. Surely that will tell them if any car needs to go back into Production for rectification or can be signed-off to the dealer?

It's much cheaper and better for business to sort out any immediate problems before the car leaves the factory. I am sure Lotus knows all this better than anyone, but it needs maximum attention. Does each car even go on the track? When I've visited Hethel, I've seen new cars being driven barely 100 yards each way up and down the car-park. Apart from go and stop, that's not going to tell the tester too much, is it? A few laps of the track might even tell them if a seat is squeaking...

Of course faults that might develop later on is another matter and will require further investigation into the root cause.

[JayEmm]

@LotusLeftLotusRight you are very correct. It doesn't help that I see a lot of Lotus dealers who have Evoras that have been sat there for as long as I've been looking at them, so 6 months+. It's not like they're struggling to get them out the door for customer demand. I do worry if JMG is going for a target of "Car's built" rather than "cars sold".

I can tell you that they DO drive every car, at least they told me they do. The majority get a shakedown on track, and random ones are chosen to be driven on road. In reality I think the first 1,000 miles done are actually the "problem finding" stage, which is not an ideal way to do it.

I also found out that Lotus now have zero ability to work on customer's cars, which is a great shame. I know that it's not normal taking a car back to the factory for work but it seemed helpful in my case, to make them aware of any faults that may be present with the current model. That and it was nice getting to interact with the factory directly. This is another area where they've had their resources limited. Such a shame Lotus Motorsport are gone too - I am sure many people took their cars for work there, so it seems mad to me to close down your revenue streams.

[Ccd]

Does anyone know the split between manuals and autos ordered in the US???  Looking at one website, there were 14 400s for sale, but only two are manuals.  Just curious

[JayEmm]

I believe over here it's roughly "half and half" but I expect the USA market expects their sports car to have a paddle shift. 

I don't know numbers, I also don't know of the 250 orders how many are actual customers and how many are dealer orders

[JayEmm]

How fast is an Evora 400?

Well, over 1.5 miles, 172mph (true speed) is what you get. I believe Lotus' 186mph top speed claim, but you'd need a damn big straight to get there.

What's interesting is I reached that speed in fifth, I am curious how differently the automatic is geared to have a 174mph absolute top

[CocoPops]

Out of interest where does acceleration slow down? 130? 140? As you said, the gap between 170-186 must take quite a while (and distance)

[JayEmm]

1 minute ago, CocoPops said:

Out of interest where does acceleration slow down? 130? 140? As you said, the gap between 170-186 must take quite a while (and distance)

 The video will be up soon, the weird thing is at the half-way marker I was doing 130 and I thought that it was running out of steam, but it just keeps going up, slowly. I swear it even had a second wind at 165... possibly an actual wind!

I was far from the quickest car out there (Let's face it, turbocharged German cars are very good at going fast in a straight line) but I achieved my goal of driving faster than I'd ever been before.

[JayEmm]

This clip won't be officially released until after the main video, but here's the link for you TLFers
 

The GPS speed reading is very inaccurate to begin with, but becomes quite accurate at the end. It recorded 171.9mph as my top, the organisers said I did "172".

[Gashead1105]

18 hours ago, JayEmm said:

How fast is an Evora 400?

Well, over 1.5 miles, 172mph (true speed) is what you get. I believe Lotus' 186mph top speed claim, but you'd need a damn big straight to get there.

What's interesting is I reached that speed in fifth, I am curious how differently the automatic is geared to have a 174mph absolute top

That's not entirely surprising, 6th gear is usually geared for efficiency to be a cruising gear so that the engine will be out of it's peak power spot even at maximum speed. 5th will be closer to the correct ratio.

[JayEmm]

6 minutes ago, Gashead1105 said:

That's not entirely surprising, 6th gear is usually geared for efficiency to be a cruising gear so that the engine will be out of it's peak power spot even at maximum speed. 5th will be closer to the correct ratio.

Yeah I know 6th is usually a cruising gear, perhaps in the auto box it just can't pull sixth well enough?

Is there a reference for the theoretical top speeds in each gear somewhere?

[CocoPops]

The gear ratios could be plugged into a gear ratio calculator to find top speeds.

I believe gear ratios are included in the technical documents? (will try and find it).

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

One of the most extreme cases of overdrive is the interstellar 6th gear of the Lotus Carlton. If the engine was somehow able to hit the start of the red line zone (approx. 6200 rpm) in 6th it would be travelling at 273 mph. The real top speed of 177 mph was always measured in 5th. I estimate this equates to just over 6000 rpm in 5th. I doubt a standard car would pull much more than 140mph in 6th, so if you changed up from 5th to 6th at a speed higher than this it would presumably begin to slow down, rather than accelerate.