Lotus and Ariel take their sports cars off road

THE INTERNET is currently bursting at the seams with people wondering whether they’re going to get their hoverboards this year. It’s 2015, which if you grew up in the Eighties or early Nineties only means one thing; finally being able to see how much Back to the Future II jumped from fiction to fact.

It’s odd looking back at the all the things proclaimed as being the future back in 1985, and I don’t just mean the Sinclair C5. Things like four-wheel-steering and talking digital dashboards were about as futuristic as Human League records – but how of many today’s cars actually have them? On the other hand, Eighties luxuries like folding door mirrors and reversing cameras are making it into even the cheapest of today’s cars, and safety essentials ABS and airbags are de rigueur. 

But I’d love to know is what petrolheads will be thinking in another 30 years when they look back at motoring’s latest rethink. This is the year, it’s looking increasingly likely, when the British sports car whipped off its trainers and slapped on some walking boots.

I’m not talking about Jaguar’s four-wheel-drive version of its F-type, but sports cars designed specifically for venturing up forest tracks rather than setting blistering lap times around Oulton Park. We’ve had sporty off-roaders before, of course, but it’s looking increasingly likely 2015 will be the year of the off-roady sports car.

Word on the automotive grapevine is that Lotus is making an off-road version of its Evora, which will keep its rear-wheel-drive but will be jacked up and fitted with knobbly tyres. It might sound preposterous, but given Lotus’ engineering talent I’m really looking forward to seeing if they can pull it off. The existing roadgoing Evora cope that badly when I treated it to a spot of impromptu off-roading for a photoshoot at Southport Beach when I test drove one a few years ago, either!

Luckily, you don’t have to wait until Lotus finishes to see what an off-road sports car looks like. Ariel has managed to cross its already mildly unhinged Atom with something you might find in an Action Man toy set, called it the Nomad, and is about to put it on sale. It hasn’t got four-wheel-drive either, but with the chunky tyres, the minimal weight and the 200bhp the 2.4 litre Honda engine chucks out, it’s unlikely you’d need it on the rough stuff. As unlikely as an off-road Ariel Atom sounds, I think it’s going to be fantastic.

So is the off-road sports car something that’s going to catch on or is it an automotive dead end? Given the appetite for cars that even look a bit off-roaders but aren’t – take a bow, Nissan Qashqai – I’d like to think it’s the former.

I’m more likely to pilot an Ariel off-road than to take up hoverboarding, that’s for sure!

Detroit Electric invites you to play Guess the Sports Car

NORMALLY Life On Cars doesn't do teaser shots - annoying images of cars almost completely hidden from view - but on this occasion it's worth making an exception.

This is the as-yet-unnamed sports car from Detroit Electric, a name that's been plucked from America's automotive back catalogue after an absence of over 70 years in order to create a trendy two-seater which will be made at a Michigan factory and officially launched next month at the Shanghai Motor Show.

Don Graunstadt, the company's chief executive, said: "We are proud to become the fourth car manufacturer born out of Detroit, and the first to manufacture a pure electric sports car from Michigan.

"We are committed to doing our part for this great revival of Detroit through innovation, entrepreneurship and determination – what we like to call ‘Detroit 2.0’.  Our investors and management team are thankful to the State of Michigan for the help provided in allowing Detroit Electric to carry on the legacy that began in Michigan so many years ago."

So what makes this otherwise obscure teaser shot so interesting? Well, very occasionally I'll get asked to play Guess the Sports Car - a largely Facebook-based game which involves successfully identifying the more obscure bits of Britain's roadster heritage - and for that reason my inner anorak almost immediately spotted a few familiar styling cues on Detroit Electric's offering.

Could this two-seater's "bold styling, outstanding performance, and exhilarating handling characteristics" be a bit British, by any chance? The LED lights and the minimalist door mirrors, I'm almost certain, are shared by a certain sports car I drove two years ago.

You might also like to know that one of Detroit Electric's backers is a chap called Albert Lam, whose CV includes a stint as the CEO of a car company and engineering group based in the Norfolk countryside. A company which already has a lot of experience of making electric sports cars closely based on its own models, like the Tesla Roadster and the Dodge EV.

Here's the wager, then. I'll eat my own shoes if the Detroit Electric isn't related, in some way or other, to the Lotus Elise...

Lotus should keep it simple to succeed

WHO wants to be a millionaire? I do, but only, obviously, so I can answer one of the motoring world's great unsolved mysteries. Would you, given the money, blow it on a brand new Lotus?

One man, former Ferrari chief Danny Bahar, was ballsy enough to try and answer this question, and came up with an ambitious plan to turn the Norfolk sports car specialists into Britain's premier league supercar makers (presumably, premier league refers to the intended customers). His plan was so brave that, as of last weekend, he's been dismissed from his job as the company's CEO.

To recap, Danny's plan; launch not one model, but five, take Lotus back to Formula One and make the company much, much more upmarket. The industry pundits sneered. Lotus' existing owners - trackday bores with tuned Elises and Exiges - wrote in to the letters pages of Evo and Autocar, demanding to know why cars created with the phase “just add lightness” in mind were going to be made bigger and heavier. Even I had a pop, poking fun in a piece last year because Lotus somehow ended up with two teams on the F1 grid with the same name. How funny was that?

Then I was actually invited to go down to the factory, out in the flatlands of Norfolk, and to drive the Evora S, which at the time of writing is still the fastest, flashiest car they make. I left Hethel thinking it was a bit of a mixed bag; I loved the care with which the cars were put together, the way the company's boffins used their expertise to fine tune all sorts of cars on their test track, and the way the company cherishes its heritage - the Esprit Sport 300 next to the main reception desk and the old F1 cars were sights to behold. But then I got shown a mock up of a shop selling Lotus-branded polo shirts and overpriced coats. The Lotus experience Danny had in mind for the more minted end of the market, to be honest, was a bit confusing.

Yet there was nothing confusing at all about the car I left Norfolk in - yes, it had useless back seats and the immobiliser didn't work, but it was simply sublime to drive. This, I reckoned, is what Lotus is all about - good looks and great handling in a lightweight package. Something the company does best in the Elise, which costs not Ferrari money but a very reasonable thirty grand.

So back to the original question. Yeah, I'd blow my hard-earned on a Lotus - but only if it's small and fun rather than bloated and overpriced. Keep it fun, chaps. Keep it simple. Above all, keep it cheap.

Lotus Evora S - better than a 911?

THIS story begins not in Hethel – the spiritual home of all things Lotus, from Elite to Exige – but on the M6, heading north towards Coventry.

The traffic jam, thanks to an accident, has backed up for miles. It is stuffy, confined, and frustratingly slow. There are hundreds of drivers here who have all have one thing in common. Not one of them wants to be here.

If I could choose a car to tackle these congested conditions, it wouldn’t be a mid-engined, supercharged, rear-wheel-drive, look-at-me supercar, and the Lotus Evora S is all of those things. It is a supercar because it goes like a jet aircraft, corners like a go-kart and looks like something styled by a Renaissance artist, but it’s a super car because it does all this with next to none of the drawbacks.

It was – and I don’t say this lightly – no harder to drive in a motorway crawl than a BMW 5-Series.

I know because this time last year, I drove an Elise, the modern classic which to this day can provide any motorist with a master class in how to do ride and handling properly. On the right roads, like any of the mountain passes in the Lake District, it was sublime, but on the motorways it was a noisy companion and once you pull over you’ll do your back in trying to get out.

Naturally, I as tried to figure it out on the train down to Norfolk to visit Lotus’ factory, the Evora would be worse. A big Elise with all the drawbacks, but with a bit of a supercar-style traditional truculence thrown in. But it isn’t.

First, the drawbacks. It’s easier to get into than any other Lotus offering, but it still requires a slightly more agile frame than most. The rear visibility is shocking, the rear seats are hopelessly cramped, and when you first set off, it is very, very wide. Oh, and the supercharged V6 is like me – endlessly reliable, but loves a drink. Own an Evora and petrol stations will become familiar places.

Yet you’ll forgive it everything because it’s two brilliant cars in one; a thirsty executive express with cruise control, leather seats and satnav, and a stunning supercar crafted by hand by Lotus, the company that brought you the Elan and the Esprit. The Evora S has 345bhp and feels like it, belting its way not only down the straights but using its seemingly divine levels of grip to destroy corners too. Oh, and it all comes in what I reckon is one of the best shapes on sale today – the Evora was and still is a truly wonderful aesthetic achievement.

Would I, if I had the £60,000 asking price, go for an Evora S? I suspect I probably would - in fact, every opinion I’ve canvassed since getting it is one of going for the Lotus rather than a 911. Luckily for me, I’ve still got a few days left to find out for definite.

I’ll keep you posted...

Lotus takes on Lotus in world's most confusing car deal

THE Lotus vs Lotus rivalry that's hit racetracks around the world in perhaps the most confusing F1 name dispute ever has hit the road.

Anyone who's been following this year's F1 season will already know that thanks to some incredibly boring business tubthumping that Team Lotus, owner of one of the sport's most iconic names, is in direct competition with Lotus Renault, which is actually backed by the Brit sports car maker. All of which means that spectators at Silverstone in July can see, probably for the only time, two completely different cars from two completely different Lotus teams, which are both powered by Renault engines. Confused? Then you're going love the story's latest twist.

The first Lotus team, the one that isn't backed by Lotus, the car maker, has just announced that it's bought Caterham Cars, makers of the iconic Caterham 7 sports car, which is of course directly descended from the - wait for it - Lotus 7 of the Sixties.

Anyone who's ever seen not-at-all-kitsch Sixties TV hit The Prisoner will already know the original Lotus 7 as that dinky little two-seater Patrick McGoohan drove around in before being kidnapped and sent to a strange village which looks suspiciously like Portmeirion in North Wales. Lotus made it right up until 1973 before getting bored with it, and flogging the rights to what was then one their main dealers in Caterham, Surrey. The rebranded Caterham 7, thanks to constant redevelopment, has been a hit ever since.

Naturally, the company's new owners have decided to play up their motorsport links and immediately placed a Caterham in Team Lotus colours next to their F1 car, a move so evocative that they immediately decided to follow this up by offering customers a limited run of Team Lotus Special Edition Caterham 7s.

So what we've now got is a Lotus-designed, Lotus-coloured car made by a company now owned by a Team Lotus which will compete directly for your sports car cash this summer with the Elise, a Lotus-designed, Lotus-badged car made by Lotus, another car company which has given its support to another F1 team called Lotus.

Where will it all end? Probably, I imagine, in a high-flying court case, although if Lotus loses we could end up with the even weirder situation where Caterham is renamed Team Lotus Cars, and the choice of car for anyone keen on their driving boils down to whether you want a Lotus or a Lotus.

My head hurts. I may have to adopt the Lotus position to relax.

Fire up the... Lotus Elise S

SATNAV, cruise control, electric seats, and a folding metal roof. These are some of things Lotus' latest Elise doesn't have, and it's all the better for it.

Clamber into the 1.6S verison of the Norfolk company's evergreen sports car - and it can be a struggle if you've got the roof up and you're not the athletic type - and on the face of it you don't get much for your £29,230, although the air con and Alpine stereo are luxuries owners of the original 1996 Elise wouldn't have got. The money, as befits a company famed for making its cars as light as possible, has been spent not on toys and gadgets, but making the two-seater roadster as thrilling as possible.

The mid-mounted Toyota engine, for instance, might only be 1.6 litres, but because it's breathed on by Lotus Performance and has so little weight to push around, the Elise is almost frighteningly quick when you really put your foot down, dealing with the sprint to sixty miles an hour in just 6.7 seconds. But the joy with the little Lotus is not how fast it goes, but how it goes fast.

You get the sense that you don't really need to slow down for the bends because it corners so capably, going exactly where you want it to while giving you an endless stream of communication through the tiny steering wheel, which goes without power assistance to give you even more feedback. Light, loud and low to the ground, the Elise is more like a four-wheeled motorbike than a car.

If I had to use a two-seater sports car every day I'd plump for the softer and more easily accessible Mazda MX-5, partly because it'd provide a smaller smile more of the time, but mainly because doing everyday things, like going to the shops, would take the edge of just what a special car the Elise is, which would be my choice as a second car for high days and holidays.

It's an upcoming classic you'd want to leave for sunny days and blasts along the B-roads, because at doing this the frantically fun Lotus is hard to beat.

As published in The Champion on March 16, 2011

The Lotus Elise: brilliant once you get into it

IT was at Forton Services that I pondered whether I'd picked the wrong car for the job.

Picture the scene; you've pulled in for a quick break from a long drive north, it's getting dark, and your passenger, who has a bad back, is trying to get out. In any normal car this wouldn't have been a problem, but I wasn't in a normal car. I was in a low-slung Lotus Elise with a letterbox-like aperture to clamber in and out of, and the roof was up. I've never witnessed
frustration like it.

The Elise S is the smallest, friendliest car Lotus make, but that's like buying a cheetah as your new family pet because it's smaller and more docile than a lion or a leopard. It's still going to make a life a little uncomfortable if you try and get on with it on a daily basis.

It is, for starters, mid-engined, which means the performance-tuned Toyota engine sits where the back seats should be, right behind your eardrums, and the space up front where you'd find the engine in your Ford Fiesta is taken up by an enormous radiator. There is a boot, right at the very back of the car, but it's tiny and almost entirely taken up by the roof, which you don't drop down on a sunny day but unclip and roll up, like a tent.

This will at least make the job of getting in, which is difficult even for a supple young reporter with the roof up, a little easier, because you can just step over the sizeable door sill and drop down into the thin, leather-lined plank that passes as a seat. To be fair, it's suprisingly
comfortable once you get in, or at least it will be until you try to pull away and realise the view over your shoulder is not of passing cyclists but of a chunky roll bar. This is particularly fun when you're trying to pull out on a motorway, for instance.

But here's the rub; if you've ended up on a motorway you're not really using this thing properly. Get rid of the passenger - they're only messing up the power to weight ratio anyway - and chuck this thing at any country lane, because on challenging roads this thing flies. For something that musters a mere 134bhp, the Elise is ridiculously rapid, buzzing and fizzing its way through bends with virtually no roll at all. It is, for better or worse, a really big go-kart.

Anyway, that's the warts 'n' all appraisal of the Elise, and why you shouldn't buy one if you've got knackered joints. If you haven't, tune in next week for a full Life On Cars road test to find out why you should.

How much do you want to sit in here?

LIFE, contrary to the cliché, doesn't begin at 40. It begins at 25.

I excitedly reckon this because as of tomorrow it will be exactly twenty five years since I made my first car journey (although whisper it quietly it was in a Volvo 340) on March 1, 1986. There's lots of things that make it, to my mind, an anniversary worth celebrating.

I can, for instance, take out cheaper car insurance. I can rent things that aren't vans. Best of all, it means I can afford to own an old sports car for the first time, which is about to go through its MOT.

Unfortunately, my other half isn't looking forward to March 1 because I'm having another British sports car delivered to the Champion offices. The 2010 Lotus Elise. And I didn't arrange it so I could use it as a birthday treat. Honest.

What you or I see when we see an Elise is the classic sports car of the future, the finely-fettled drivers' tool which saw Lotus reinvent itself as a master of all things lightweight following the flop that was the front-wheel-drive Elan. What my other half sees, on the other hand, is what you see above; two thin, rock hard seats perched low in a noisy car with next to no visibility at all, accessible only once you've scaled those ridiculously wide sills.

I keep trying to explain to her that sports cars like this - and the even less comfortable Caterham Seven, which I've also squeezed myself into on a couple of occasions - are supposed to be raw and cramped, which she's accepted on the strict proviso that I pay for the osteopath she visits afterwards. Perhaps the only answer is to persuade Lotus to launch a "passenger version" of the Elise, with the driver's side stripped out for thrills and performance and the passenger's retrimmed luxuriously for frills and pampering.

The prospect of an Elise, two conveniently-booked days off and some nice weather is enough to send me into a bout of childish excitement, which is why by the time this week's Champion drops though your letterbox I'll be blasting the Toyota-engined screamer along a mountain pass in the Lake District.

For me, it'll be seat-of-the-pants thrills. For my long-suffering other half, it'll be a pain in the backside.

You wait ages for a new Lotus and then five come at once

IT'S the Paris Motorshow and every right-minded petrolhead is pondering the same question; why launch one new model when you can launch five?

I always imagined the chaps at Lotus would get quite offended if you called them a conventional car maker, so it's somehow appropriate that just months after returning to the world's racetracks with a semi-official F1 effort they've launched a quintet of new cars.

Not only have the Elise, Esprit, Elite and Elan models been revisted with a selection of sports cars in different shapes and sizes, the Norfolk company's also gunning for the likes of Porsche's Panamera with its four-door Eterne, making it the first Lotus saloon since the slightly loopy Lotus Carlton of the early 1990s.

Is the company's PR coup five times better than just launching a single model, which on its own would have been enough to steal the show, like the Evora managed to at London's motorshow two years ago? I'm not so sure.

The new Esprit is the most immediately exotic and exciting - it's a real Ferrari-chaser, and the first we've had from Lotus since the original Esprit died off several years ago - and the Eterne is a bold venture into uncharted waters, but the others stray from Lotus heartlands a little too quickly.

The £35,000 Elise, for instance, is getting worryingly close to Porsche Boxster territory for what's meant to be a small, lightweight little sports car, but it's the Elan which is almost unrecognisable from its illustrious predecessors. Lotus reckons Elan drivers demand more but the last two were a success because they gave less - as in less weight, which made them a favourite with keen drivers.

And the Elite? As a £115,000 Lotus it makes little sense, but I love it already. Clearly nobody actually needs one, but that's exactly why I'd have one.

I have until 2014 to save up.