Here’s a brief write up from my factory visit on 3rd May.
Our guide Nick was excellent, showing us numerous parts of the process in great detail. We saw cars and panels in all FE colours, plus vivid red and white. Much has been said on the paint colours and complexity. My take away was that the overall finish is very good and of a high quality, but not some amazing new layered effect. Most of the benefit is the ability to remove the errors of hand paining with the very latest automated spray nozzle in only a few steps. Attracting the paint to an electrically charged primer is key to this process. Clever stuff for composite panels. Panels are all painted away from the car on a wire jig and added once the tub has the bulkheads and roof glued on, before being placed on the automated trolley.
Front and rear assemblies are built separately, with hvac etc up front and engine/brakes/discs etc. on rear. Boxes of brake components from J.Juan piled up.. Subframe is already bespoke, with tour or sports and labeled with the finished colour. Certainly no room for a front storage space. Note: Once the bonnet is added, it’s bolted down, but still hinged along the front edge. Engines from Toyota get a load of parts removed, including the flywheel. The starter has to be relocated, so again plenty of work to fit into the steel subframe (aluminium on i4). Gearbox comes from a diesel avensis, I believe, due to being stronger to cope with the 400+ torque. I think they also change gears 2,3,4,5 to better match the V6 delivery. A fairly large hole is drilled into the gearbox housing to allow for oil cooling (again not standard).
Aluminium tubs come from another Lotus Norwich factory (Lotus Structures?) and they then add mounts, wiring, tank, cooling pipes etc. This is the only time tubs are worked on on their side. They then move to a robot section to apply glue for firewall bulkheads, roof rails and roof. Makes me think how easy it would be to alter the design of a solid roof to a removable panel etc. The current tubs were being put through as MT stage (machine tooling verification).
@freefall_junkie already mentioned the impressive in-house seat assembly process onto the Ferrari Lear frame with leather coming from The Bridge of Wier factory. Certainly very bespoke to Lotus and great looking. Red is very bright red (not rich), tan is toffee, ice looked light white grey through the car window. Finish is matt not gloss.
Each of the 40+ stations has 17 minutes to complete their task and scattered between them are at least 3 quality stations. Something Lotus hasn’t had before. At the end of the line the cars are setup for geometry then rolling road tested to 60mph. Outside is a brand new rattle test track, which every car gets taken around. Possibly 4 rows of 20m long.
Bonus elements included; Meeting Mark, another forum member! The sun was out and shinning on Magma, Seneca and White models. Seeing the white GT4 car being thrashed around the track, sitting in and revving a PP Seneca V6, a pair of racing Esprits in reception, hearing about the EV program especially the Hetel built Evija