I was told a black with a gold flip is one of the colours available post first edition.. Real shame the launch colours are all a bit uninspiring. The Exige FE in the showroom was in a gorgeous Evija like gold yellow. The Emira yellow is plain in comparison (I took the swatch over to it to compare). Here’s a pic of it against the blue car. To be fair the Hethel yellow will no doubt look good in isolation but why isn’t the first edition car getting a couple of properly stand out colours other than the blue, which for me is a bit Focus RS / last year’s colour.
The material swatches felt ok. No more than ok. Seems there is a green stitch on black option. There wasn’t a grey stitch. Or a grey leather swatch for that matter.
For balance, the car itself still looks spectacular. To most people it will often be mistaken as a small mclaren/lambo/Ferrari etc. It’s stunning and I probably still want one. But I was really hoping for something much closer to production quality rather than a slightly rough around the edges clearly now much used show car. The carpets and steering wheel are a bit dodgy, the seat feels incredibly hard (and high as already mentioned). The fake ride height and the marks on the paintwork kind of detracted from the specialness for me. And question the desire to commit throwing best part of £80k at it. But hey, everyone has already bought one so I guess they just need to get the first builds right.
For what it’s worth the event itself was weird. We were told to go and sit in the car park by a PR person when we first got there, not the customer experience I was expecting (although we arrived a bit early, saying have a look around the other cars would have been somewhat more friendly).
Clearly Lotus roadshow team have sorted budget for fancy lights and loud sound system but someone should have given a chunk to B&C for drinks and food. To say they were ‘sub optimal’ would be generous. I didn’t see anyone really welcoming the punters and offering them hospitality. The intro by B&C’s sales guy was ok, but then the UK head of sales fairly unenthusiastically read a PR written script off a piece of paper. It was all a bit dry. Highlight for me was Russell being there in person. He then stepped up and did a decent job of the ‘babysupercar’ chat. Though the poor guy looks tired! It was all over in a few minutes but then there was plenty of time to chat with people, that was the best bit really.
See one in person at concourse of elegance , the car is stunning and a major step in the right direction for lotus 
We’ve a bit of a journey to B&C tmrw.. like many others, fuel allowing, I hope we can all get there!
