Lotus Emira vs 2023 Corvette Z06

[LotusB]

How was the ingress/egress? On that one pic of the kid looking up at you from the passenger side, it looks like the door sills are pretty wide.

That's my son. I don't recall the width of the door sills, but it's definitely much more work than the Emira to get in/out. It's mostly the humungous bolsters that make things hard. On post 10 you can see an older guy getting in... granted he wasn't in the best of shapes, but it was a chore for him.

It's about as practical as an Elise for a daily driver. Meaning the hardcore folk will look at these kinds of things as a feature. This car is definitely no joke, it's very obvious it's built for a purpose and that's to rival supercars at the track. Speaking of which, it's harder to get in/out compared to a Lamborghini Huracan EVO, but once in the car it has better visibility, space and comfort.

Keep in mind I'm going from memory... but that's the general gist

 

[VL3X]

Reviving this old thread since the newest Throttle House is extremely relevant.

 

[EspritGuy]

Reviving this old thread since the newest Throttle House is extremely relevant.

Not sure why. A comparison of 2 unequal ( price, HP, transmission) cars
that has zero bearing on my driving desires and habits.
I wanted an Emira, not a Chevy cliche.
That 'it's a Lotus' universally needs no further explanation.
Opinions will vary.

 

[WindJunkie]

A comparison of 2 unequal ( price, HP, transmission) cars
that has zero bearing on my driving desires and habits.

This was my exact thought. I think both cars will get a lot of clicks, so they just went with it. It's so hard for me to get excited for 2 pedal sports cars. I could win the lotto and probably still wouldn't buy one

 

[kitkat]

Sheesh take it easy guys, it was a fun video and they only poked fun at their comparison of the two.

 

[EZcheezy]

Z06 is pretty sick. if it was manual i might have picked it over the emira.

 

[Fasttoys]

I have both on order an Emira and a Z06. Z06 production starts July 22nd with mid-August delivery. In the video this is a convertible Z which is heavier and slower on the track, it does have the Z07 packaged. My 2024 Z06 with a lot of nice options all in MSRP with gas guzzlers is $119,181. The 2024 comes with more standard options compared to the 2023. The rear-view mirror has built in camera now and some other options now come on a 1LZ. It doesn’t have the z07 package, but I am not a fan of that wing, and the speed is equal it’s the down force and extra with carbon fiber wheels and brakes.

My Z will be Cyber Gray Metallic Tri Coat but with Red Calipers. Here is my Emira too.

 

[LuckysDad]

I've been considering an ERay. That's a really compelling package.

 

[marc1adrien]

It's fascinating to me that people cross-shop these.

Emira is a low-production manual car with a very narrow brief: maximum driver involvement and enjoyment, leveraging the best of old tech. Rare, achingly pretty, last of its kind.

Corvette is America's sports car and needs to appeal to a much larger brief: comfortable, fast, V8, comfy ride to the golf club, produced in large numbers, weight and size no big deal, brutish and brutal, and design is, um, something that will date itself rather quickly. Must appeal to the auto journalists, the purists, the old school Corvette owners. Massively fast and impressive as a look-what-I-can-do exercise in engineering following the Ferrari template? Absolutely. Very, very impressive and quick. With that said, I'd never even consider one.

To each his own, I guess.

 

[kitkat]

It's fascinating to me that people cross-shop these.

Emira is a low-production manual car with a very narrow brief: maximum driver involvement and enjoyment, leveraging the best of old tech. Rare, achingly pretty, last of its kind.

Corvette is America's sports car and needs to appeal to a much larger brief: comfortable, fast, V8, comfy ride to the golf club, produced in large numbers, weight and size no big deal, brutish and brutal, and design is, um, something that will date itself rather quickly. Must appeal to the auto journalists, the purists, the old school Corvette owners. Massively fast and impressive as a look-what-I-can-do exercise in engineering following the Ferrari template? Absolutely. Very, very impressive and quick. With that said, I'd never even consider one.

To each his own, I guess.

I think a lot of people simply just don't have that narrow of a goal for "I can afford a sports car, what should I buy?"

 

[frazzer]

Reviving this old thread since the newest Throttle House is extremely relevant.

beautiful spec on the Emira, completely different to my DV + silver wheels, but love it

 

[DerTheDer]

I liked the quote that the Emira is NOT slow, its just the Corvette is insanely fast.

 

[Hapkin]

It's fascinating to me that people cross-shop these.

Emira is a low-production manual car with a very narrow brief: maximum driver involvement and enjoyment, leveraging the best of old tech. Rare, achingly pretty, last of its kind.

Corvette is America's sports car and needs to appeal to a much larger brief: comfortable, fast, V8, comfy ride to the golf club, produced in large numbers, weight and size no big deal, brutish and brutal, and design is, um, something that will date itself rather quickly. Must appeal to the auto journalists, the purists, the old school Corvette owners. Massively fast and impressive as a look-what-I-can-do exercise in engineering following the Ferrari template? Absolutely. Very, very impressive and quick. With that said, I'd never even consider one.

To each his own, I guess.

Your Corvette definition is true for the C8 Stingray and the Eray. It does not apply to the ZO6 which has way more emotion engineered in, a much more narrow road and track focus, a ridiculously awesome flat crank high revving 458 sounding engine and amazing Magnaride suspension. It is an incredible value for money.

Money no option, if i didn't want a manual sports car I would have strongly considered a Z06 but at the time the ADM was too high and no manual. That said, I am happy with my Emira minus the 6850 redline and lack of low end torque and front end turn in wobble.

 

[Type131]

A 400hp Emira seems to have the right power for its price. A 450hp Emira--plus everything added to support that power level--would have the right power for its price. Neither too much power, neither too little.

All other things being equal, 450hp dropped into the current Emira package might be too much power for its manual transmission based on what we've seen with other special edition Lotuses being limited to 430hp and the Radford 62-2 ditching the manual for some other DCT to support 500hp+. Want more power? Sure, just need to pay for it and all supporting accoutrements like an Evora GT430 to the tune of $150k+. Or a 500hp+ Radford 62-2 for $400k+.

Would be nice to have 410hp or 416hp from the latter Evoras but my guess is emissions got stricter somewhere and Lotus chose to subsidize cost for us by making it universally emissions compliant with one global 400hp tune. Evora GT or GT410 starting prices were more than the Emira's so all seem priced appropriately for their power. If emissions weren't the issue, you may say it wouldn't cost Lotus anything more to use those existing Evora tunes. True, but then it will still cost more to recoup the development and assembly line retooling costs dedicated to the Emira which would bring price back up to Evora levels. So they dropped power by 10-16hp to drop price (again, assuming emissions remained unchanged globally) which is more an annoyance than a deal breaker. No company gives their very best iteration at bargain prices on 1st year model launch. Not Toyota, not GM, and certainly not Lotus who can't even leverage economies of scale like them. Lotus needs to sustain some profitability to stay in business with much lower volume sales. I believe the Emira's current price and power are fair, keeping both the customers and Lotus in earnest.

Love how we're moving the goal posts.

Initial argument is that there's no need for extra power, because the car won't be balanced... it'll be too much. Once the Cayman is shown as an example.... well it's the price now, it's no longer the balance or "too much."

Also @switchlanez we already know why we can't have more than ~430hp with the V6 Emira. Even at that power level, we're exceeding the specs of the Toyota EA60 transmission (https://www.dee-ltd.co.uk/powertrain/ea62.html) which is rated to 400Nm (or ~295 ft lbs of torque). The automatic is rated higher at 450Nm/330lb ft of torque, which is why Lotus tunes them for more torque (around 10 ft-lb difference, if memory serves).

Your examples of some one-off cars, especially the Radford are completely off-base. Lotus could have spent funds on engineering and installing a Getrag/Tremec DCT transmission. I believe Komo-tec is using the Getrag transmissions. But instead they invested in the design of the car as well as the plant, to reduce the price and pump out more cars. I can't blame them from a business perspective, but I'd gladly pay more for more power.

Anyway, I digress, the point is that the chassis can handle more and will handle more once the I4 becomes the dominant platform and Lotus iterates on the cooling design. The M139 in the Mercedes S is tuned to 416hp/369 ft lbs (500Nm)... so the chassis could definitely handle a more powerful V6. We just won't get it because of the transmission and everyone will make excuses that it's by design, because more would be too much.

JUBU 440 for the V6 doesn't beef up the transmission, just an ECU tune. How do you reconcile this?

 

[Vampyre]

Lotus and Corvette, both different and both fun to drive on the street or on a track at limits. Some get it some don't. If I had to pick one, it would be the Emira, it covers my needs well.

 

[marc1adrien]

Your Corvette definition is true for the C8 Stingray and the Eray. It does not apply to the ZO6 which has way more emotion engineered in, a much more narrow road and track focus, a ridiculously awesome flat crank high revving 458 sounding engine and amazing Magnaride suspension. It is an incredible value for money.

Money no option, if i didn't want a manual sports car I would have strongly considered a Z06 but at the time the ADM was too high and no manual. That said, I am happy with my Emira minus the 6850 redline and lack of low end torque and front end turn in wobble.

Fair enough. I've only ever seen one and I can't say it was pretty. Brutal, oddly big and looked to me like the engineers kept saying "oh one more thing". I'm with you, though, it's about having a manual.

 

[Speedy Emira]

I just watched the review and it all seems pretty fair to me. I agree the Z06 is faster, handles better on the track and looks nice but not a nice as the Emira. Great handling but less feedback also fair.
It is good to compare cars so I was happy to see the Emira beat the Cayman GTS 4.0 on the same track, but I knew exactly what they were going to say before I even watched it.
I'd like to see a JUBU 500 Emira with coil overs, lighter wheels and their splitter/wing kit go up against it because a Emira GT4 would have been a better comparison on the track at least.

 

[Speedy Emira]

By the way I think you US guys are braver than me for buying an Emira from a small production company in another country. I wouldn't have picked the Z06 through worry things go wrong and I am waiting forever for parts.
I often go to events with the local AMG club and one of them was waiting over a year for parts after an accident, which is madness from a main stream car brand like Mercedes. The car world is going mad the more we are being squeezed out of the combustion engine era.

 

[Fasttoys]

My 2024 Z06 finally arrived on Friday.

 

[LuckysDad]

My 2024 Z06 finally arrived on Friday.

How do you like it compared to the Emira? I'm about to place an order for an ’25 ERay.