Lotus shows new Emira performance testing

Lotus has posted a video of the new Emira sports car sliding and carving up the track at its Hethel test circuit.

The Emira (pronounced ‘eh-meer-ah’) will eventually be priced from around $150,000 in Australia, although the First Edition Emira V6 sets buyers back $184,990 before on-road costs. It will come standard with a six-speed manual transmission while a six-speed auto with paddle shift is optional.

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The natural Porsche Cayman rival is shown in the test video at the hands of Lotus’s Director of Attributes and Product Integrity, Gavan Kershaw, who walks us through some of the Emira’s traits and how the drive mode system works.

Tour Mode provides “maximum stability and control”, and Sport Mode gives more “body slip” with a sharper throttle.

The more aggressive Race Mode lets the Emira slip around even more with reduced traction and stability control, while the digital dash changes theme for the setting. There is also a Fully-Off Mode, which, as it suggests, turns the traction control off so it is “100 per cent controlled by the driver”.

We also hear about the interior, with Kershaw saying it is “really modern in feel” and talking further about the aerodynamic performance of the car.

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Powering the Emira is a Toyota-sourced 3.5-litre supercharged V6 engine producing 298kW of power and 420Nm of torque through the six-speed manual and 430Nm when attached to the six-speed automatic transmission.

That's good enough for a 4.2sec 0-100km/h launch and Kershaw describes the drivetrain as offering excellent response down low with a revvy top-end while sliding the Emira on track.

First deliveries of the Lotus Emira V6 Edition will start around mid-2022, with the greater range expected to land here near 2023.