Would suit:
Emma Peel of 'The Avengers'.
Price:
£33 895 (SA price when it arrives this year, R635 000).
Performance:
230km/h, 0-100km/h 5.5sec.
Combined fuel consumption:
9.33 litres/100km.
I think we can all agree that Lotus is one of those indisputably good things, like yoga or puppies. Certainly that's been the view of the motoring media ever since Colin Chapman launched the Lotus 7 in 1957 and wowed the world with its lightweight chassis and sublime handling.
Lotuses are always fun, relatively cheap, not too thirsty and as attention-grabbing as many cars twice the price - the David to Porsche's Goliath. Back in the 1960's and 1970's everybody, fictional heroes (Emma Peel, James Bond) and real-life racing gods (Ayrton Senna, James Hunt), drove them.
However, Lotus seems to have lost its way in recent years. The Esprit was discontinued in 2004 and that left only the Elise and its derivatives to keep the production line busy. The days when every boy dreamed of a Lotus that could swim and every older boy dreamed of a Lotus driven by Diana Rigg were long past.
I shouldn't have been surprised, then, to read the largely negative reviews of Lotus's new model, the Europa, but it still came as a shock to hear some of the company's staunchest fans lay into the new car.
The Europa, they said, was not what Lotus had promised. It was an unhappy compromise, another reheated Elise - or, worse, a Vauxhall VX220 - rendered redundant, if not ridiculous, by its more accomplished competition. Lotus had pitched the car as "business class" but the company's idea of luxury appeared to amount to little more than a few hastily applied carpets.
But when mine arrived the first thing that grabbed me was the new styling. This has to be the best-looking Lotus since the original Esprit; it has lines more harmonious and full-bodied than the Elise. Some faces look better with a little more padding and that of Lotus is one of them.
Unfortunately these days, my own extra padding isn't limited to my face, so the Europa was as awkward to enter as the Elise (or has my backside grown since I tried the Exige a couple of months ago? Quite possibly).
The sills have been lowered and the car is wider but the interior is far removed from any notions of luxury; it's still a baked-beans can with some plastic padding. Still very much an Elise. It looks and feels hand-crafted... but in a bad way. You don't find plastics like this even in Korean cars these days; the ergonomics are appalling; the rear-view mirror shows overpaint in the engine bay.
Cayman costs less
Whatever, it's still joyous to drive and has the same lightning steering and throttle responses, roll-free cornering and hungry acceleration as the track-sharp Elise.
Actually the two cars' performances might diverge on a race circuit but on the road you only notice the good things about the Europa: you don't clench your bum when you see a pothole and there is an excellent six-speed gearbox.
It's only when you stop to consider that you could have a Porsche Cayman for R550 000 (in SA) that you appreciate the daunting challenge it will face in the market.
Lotus, in one of the more unlikely alliances in the automotive industry, is owned by Malaysian automaker Proton. The company promises that the next Esprit, due to start production in December 2009, will still be made at the factory in Hethel, Norfolk and while that ought to ensure its inherent Lotusness the Esprit will need to represent a huge leap in quality, comfort and practicality if Lotus is to remain relevant in the 21st century. - The Independent, London