Went to go see Emira… purchased an Evora

[DaaS]

Lovely!

I wish the Emira was offered in Liquid Yellow.

How good a match is the Liquid Yellow with the yellow brake calipers?

Yellow calipers are a lighter shade of yellow. In real life the difference does not jump out at all because the body panels themselves change from light to dark yellow based on lighting conditions.

 

[TomE]

I know this is an Emira forum, but like many of you, I was also new to Lotus until I recently purchased an Evora GT and I wanted to share my Lotus ownership experience while we wait for the Emira to arrive...

First service and dealership experience... I purchased the Evora GT with 900 miles and I am fortunate to have a local Lotus dealership about 15 minutes away. It is not a dedicated Lotus dealership. It is not fancy, no free donuts or water bottles, no loaners or courtesy shuttles. Your local dealership experience may vary (assuming you even have one), but the point is you may have to set appropriate expectations before you start complaining. On the positive note, the service staff was great. The 1000 miles service was $300 USD and included synthetic oil change, wheels torqued to specs and engine diagnostics report. Next basic service is due in 12 months. (BTW, another Lotus dealership few hundred miles away quoted me $5xx for the same exact first service). I also had couple of warranty items that the first owner probably ignored, but they were handled professionally by the service staff. The engine diagnostics report was interesting. As analog as this car is, it is keeping track of the engine speed, how long engine was at certain RPMs, coolant temp, oil pressure, acceleration rates, g-forces, etc. No signs of abuse were found on my car. Point is, be aware that Emira will likely log similar diagnostic information that the service department can pull up if needed.

Driving experience... somehow I have managed to put 500 miles on the Evora GT in 4 weeks. I think the honeymoon period is over and I still love driving it. I wanted the auto transmission and I have no regrets at all. Gearing is good and up/down shifts are quick enough. Exhaust note is amazing. I will be sad to not have the dedicated exhaust button on the Emira. 416hp is enough. There is plenty of low speed drama. Suspension is on the firm side and I wish the dampers were adjustable. Unless the roads are smooth, your bones will feel every little bump and imperfection. I guess this is "GT" in the Lotus world. I always selected the 'sport suspension' option on my Garman cars, but I am debating selecting the 'Touring' option on the Emira, but it feels wrong doing it. I probably won't because Emira will not be my primary car and stiffer suspension adds to the car's personality.

Overall build quality... it's very good in most areas and then you wonder what happened. Exterior paint job is excellent. Wheels are well made. Chassis feels super solid, steering wheel mounted pedals are metal. Leather and plastics are nice. There are no funny squeaks coming from the dash even with such a firm suspension. Then you close the frameless door with the window down and all the solid feeling goes away. I know it's a frameless door thing when the windows are down, but other manufacturers have figured out how to make it sound solid. I actually checked this in the pre-production Emira and it was better.

Random thoughts and comparisons... If you are coming from Korean, Japanese or German cars, your Lotus experience will be different. It is unique and it has quirks so adjust your expectations of the 'overall experience' that you expect when buying a $100K USD car. These quirks are not annoying enough to ditch the car, but life will be easier if Lotus was your second car.

After driving the Evora GT, most fancy German sports cars now feel like fast, numb and refined street cars and less like true sports cars that reward basic driving. I recall Cayman GT4 having similar raw driving characteristics as the Evora, but it needed to be rev'd a lot and I never got out of 3rd gear due to tall gearing. R8 and 991.2 GT3 are really nice and also faster, but still too refined. New M cars fall into a similar category with lots of horsepower, suspension tricks and AWD.

I hope Emira keeps all the good stuff from the Evora and improves on the quirks. I will post some pics if anyone still cares about the aging Evora.

Great write up. Thanks for sharing your thoughts (and pics of your car - I love Liquid Yellow). Particularly useful for a newish owner to give your impressions of the car and initial ownership experience.

The ECU data logging isn't unique to Lotus but probably is something you're more aware of if you buy new/nearly new. That's because the readouts are checked at first service to confirm the initial running in has been sensible and hence they can confirm the engine warranty. It's possible to request a dealer pull the data from a used car you're interested in, which can give some peace of mind about use/abuse. It has resulted in at least one warranty being voided, although data did show repeated clutch-dumping at high rpm from standstill over several hours (including after 1st gear had been stripped and killed!).

The suspension on the GT is directly equivalent to Sports on the Emira. Would be interesting to know what kind of road surfaces you were driving on and whether it was just bumpy or annoying/tiring. As you know, I keep saying Touring will be great for most people's everyday driving.

 

[DaaS]

Great write up. Thanks for sharing your thoughts (and pics of your car - I love Liquid Yellow). Particularly useful for a newish owner to give your impressions of the car and initial ownership experience.

The ECU data logging isn't unique to Lotus but probably is something you're more aware of if you buy new/nearly new. That's because the readouts are checked at first service to confirm the initial running in has been sensible and hence they can confirm the engine warranty. It's possible to request a dealer pull the data from a used car you're interested in, which can give some peace of mind about use/abuse. It has resulted in at least one warranty being voided, although data did show repeated clutch-dumping at high rpm from standstill over several hours (including after 1st gear had been stripped and killed!).

The suspension on the GT is directly equivalent to Sports on the Emira. Would be interesting to know what kind of road surfaces you were driving on and whether it was just bumpy or annoying/tiring. As you know, I keep saying Touring will be great for most people's everyday driving.

Thanks Tom. I live in Florida and I thought streets here were pretty good until I drove over the same roads in the Evora GT. Your body ends up moving a lot because the suspension does not absorb broken pavement and uneven surfaces. It is firm, not harsh (there is a difference ) It gets a little annoying/tiring if you are driving back from work and or just going from A to B because it's your daily. However, when I am in the mood to drive, I like the firmness because my butt, spine and head feels everything and it is different to drive than anything else in my garage. Fortunately, the Evora GT isn't my daily, but I still wish it had a bit more of that dual personality (adaptive dampers).

 

[Mike-engel]

Thanks Tom. I live in Florida and I thought streets here were pretty good until I drove over the same roads in the Evora GT. Your body ends up moving a lot because the suspension does not absorb broken pavement and uneven surfaces. It is firm, not harsh (there is a difference ) It gets a little annoying/tiring if you are driving back from work and or just going from A to B because it's your daily. However, when I am in the mood to drive, I like the firmness because my butt, spine and head feels everything and it is different to drive than anything else in my garage. Fortunately, the Evora GT isn't my daily, but I still wish it had a bit more of that dual personality (adaptive dampers).

Thanks for these impressions. I just drove an Evora GT and felt it was a bit stiff for my tastes if I was to use it as a daily. But on a smooth highway (recently paved) it was AWESOME! I did notice a little cockpit rattling sound when going over the junctions on a concrete highway, and more road noise than I expected too. I really dislike concrete roads. Give me asphalt any day. Much more quiet and pleasant for highway driving (which for me generally means longer trips). The car was a 2021. IPS was actually really quick, and the grunt on downshifting was epic. Hopefully I can get them down on price. I just can’t pay more for an Evora than I will for the Emira. But the notion of having “twins” (last version of Evora and first version of Emira) is hard to pass up!