action_turtle
Emira Fanatic
Hi all,
Collected my car Wednesday from the factory, so thought I would put a small post up with some info that may be of interest.
Day started off with a small panic whilst on the train to Norwich. I received an email from Scott Walker and all I could see on the preview line was "...apologies". CS got the time wrong and I didn't get the updated email, so was 1pm and not 12 lol. But Scott was great and came and picked me up from the train station. Nice guy, loads of knowledge, and told me a few bits that I found interesting and will share below.
Only two of us collecting cars, I was alone as my ride in couldn't make it in the end, and Ralph, from the Piston Heads forum, came with his wife, so were only three of us on the tour which was great. If you are in the UK, or perhaps EU, I would make the trip for a factory collection. Really interesting set up, the place is massive, and seeing it all come together by hand is really impressive. You will definitely learn a few things. Lotus on the whole is selling themselves short over this 'Just a Toyota engine' thing. They remove most of it, and then build on top of it. Toyota refuses to alter the engine as it's too small a volume, so all the bits Lotus do not want goes into crates and are sent back to Toyota to be used in its service chain, and it's a lot! The reason they are not making the engine from scratch is as it's the final one. With the recent investment, and if the ICE ban were not a thing, I think they would make their own engine.
Everyone in the factory rotates stations, so they know how to build each step. It stops them from getting bored and complacent. Also if a station has a problem, they can hit a help button, and anyone can assist. This keeps the line moving. At 2pm they has 18 cars made, although I'm not sure when the count started. Another thing I noticed was that they pushed more women into the visual quality control and the interior. They were also in the other areas, but mainly in those sections on my visit. Lotus like women in QC as they notice these visual cock ups more than us blokes I was told lol. On my visit they were making I4 for China, everywhere I looked was an I4 for China. They are going full tilt to create enough cars to fill a boat that is currently loaded with EV's. Once it arrives they will swap the EV's for I4's and send it back. I did see an I4 going around the test track, it was silent, to the point I thought it was electric?!? It had no rear so I assume thats the reason. We also saw an I4 on the shakedown course, it sounded fine. Like you would expect an A-class AMG to sound at ~10mph. Not my cup of tea compared to the V6. V6 sounds great even when standing still.
Paint section needs to be seen by everyone. The colours are insane; even two cars next to each other look different. The slightest change in conditions produces a different colour. If you are not locked in yet and still undecided on colour, go to the factory and look at the cars in person. The configurator sells every paint job short. For example, the dark grey looked great, but Scott said it was not popular due to the website not showing it off. The dark grey had blue and silver in it, which looked special in person, but 'meh', on the website. They need to put videos of the cars on the paint picker, imo. Even the flat colours like Yellow look different each time I found one. Mine looked orange by the time I got home under a sun set.
Other things to note;
Seen the Evija moving about in testing form; everything was gutted inside, no rear, lights etc, but good to see them developing it.
GT4 guys were over on the test track, but no car on the track, sadly. It's nearly good to go, apparently.
Scott Walker owns some of the cars on display in the customer building, wild green tartan interior in a yellow car for one of them lol. I also asked him about the email I received from B&C regarding no black badges. They were kind of correct. Lotus are holding them for new cars. But this is based around a branding change, so no imitate GT/R/S Emira in coming. Black and yellow/white/silver is easier for marketing, basically. So all the new nose badges and wheel centres will be the same as what's currently on the steering wheel. Scott made a good point though, if you do swap the yellow out, make sure you keep them. Using me as an example, a First Edition Yellow Auto will be rare, so having this quirky OG yellow badge will keep it unique if I ever sell it or want to take it to a car show, so I may not swap them.
Right, onto the car!
Since a child, I always said my Ferrari would be red, my Porsche would be Black, my Lamborghini would be Orange and my Lotus would be Yellow. So, Yellow with a Full black pack. I had all the options apart from Home Link. The Interior is very well made. The only new cars I can compare it to is the Mercedes' I have had over the years. If you swapped the Lotus badges for Mercedes stars and sat me in it, I would not think twice. The quality is on par, perhaps better than my fully loaded E Class I just came out of. Any issues early cars may have had have been resolved, imo. Everything is perfect. Another quirk is that I went with Yellow stitching; the yellow is "Lotus yellow", so it's the same as the nose badge and wheel centres, not the car. Another reason why I may stick with the factory badges.
I understand people going for manual, in that old-school drivers mode, but the Auto sounds amazing. Having the car rev match on a downshift sounds unreal! Due to the lack of auto videos on YouTube, this caught me by surprise. Crackles, pops and bangs just driving around under 4k revs is quite the show. Many people stop to watch me drive by, cars on the road try to drive side by side to get a look, and people have wound down the window to ask for some revs lol. As the car is rare for now it attracts a lot of attention, I expect this to fade once more hit the road, but don't expect to go unnoticed in this thing! Everything else is to be expected, reading what others have written.
Issues; After having it for a few days I have noticed my rear bumper is not aligned correctly on the driver's side, so will get that sorted soon. And the Apple CarPlay lags when skipping songs on Spotify. I noticed this morning that my driver's seat belt is twisted. Apart from that, everything is perfect for now. Another 'issue' or happy mistake is they gave me full ceramic that I didn't pay for. I think this was a CS cock-up, as I did have it added but then removed it again. I assume they forgot to take it off the order/build sheet. Can't complain, even got a bag of cleaning stuff in the boot. During the day they also gave me money to spend in the shop, so got a nice book on the history of Lotus and a keyring thrown in!
All in all, very happy with day and car. Was a little lost for words when I pulled the cover off. Without getting the violins out, I come from a very poor background. Born on a council estate, with no real help in life, and had to work myself into a position where I'm financially sound and have enough assets built up to where I can now warrant being able to buy this car. So perhaps my view of the Emira is through rose-tinted glasses as it represents a little more than just a car to me, but I would say to anyone on the fence to stick it out and wait for the car, it's worth it!
Collected my car Wednesday from the factory, so thought I would put a small post up with some info that may be of interest.
Day started off with a small panic whilst on the train to Norwich. I received an email from Scott Walker and all I could see on the preview line was "...apologies". CS got the time wrong and I didn't get the updated email, so was 1pm and not 12 lol. But Scott was great and came and picked me up from the train station. Nice guy, loads of knowledge, and told me a few bits that I found interesting and will share below.
Only two of us collecting cars, I was alone as my ride in couldn't make it in the end, and Ralph, from the Piston Heads forum, came with his wife, so were only three of us on the tour which was great. If you are in the UK, or perhaps EU, I would make the trip for a factory collection. Really interesting set up, the place is massive, and seeing it all come together by hand is really impressive. You will definitely learn a few things. Lotus on the whole is selling themselves short over this 'Just a Toyota engine' thing. They remove most of it, and then build on top of it. Toyota refuses to alter the engine as it's too small a volume, so all the bits Lotus do not want goes into crates and are sent back to Toyota to be used in its service chain, and it's a lot! The reason they are not making the engine from scratch is as it's the final one. With the recent investment, and if the ICE ban were not a thing, I think they would make their own engine.
Everyone in the factory rotates stations, so they know how to build each step. It stops them from getting bored and complacent. Also if a station has a problem, they can hit a help button, and anyone can assist. This keeps the line moving. At 2pm they has 18 cars made, although I'm not sure when the count started. Another thing I noticed was that they pushed more women into the visual quality control and the interior. They were also in the other areas, but mainly in those sections on my visit. Lotus like women in QC as they notice these visual cock ups more than us blokes I was told lol. On my visit they were making I4 for China, everywhere I looked was an I4 for China. They are going full tilt to create enough cars to fill a boat that is currently loaded with EV's. Once it arrives they will swap the EV's for I4's and send it back. I did see an I4 going around the test track, it was silent, to the point I thought it was electric?!? It had no rear so I assume thats the reason. We also saw an I4 on the shakedown course, it sounded fine. Like you would expect an A-class AMG to sound at ~10mph. Not my cup of tea compared to the V6. V6 sounds great even when standing still.
Paint section needs to be seen by everyone. The colours are insane; even two cars next to each other look different. The slightest change in conditions produces a different colour. If you are not locked in yet and still undecided on colour, go to the factory and look at the cars in person. The configurator sells every paint job short. For example, the dark grey looked great, but Scott said it was not popular due to the website not showing it off. The dark grey had blue and silver in it, which looked special in person, but 'meh', on the website. They need to put videos of the cars on the paint picker, imo. Even the flat colours like Yellow look different each time I found one. Mine looked orange by the time I got home under a sun set.
Other things to note;
Seen the Evija moving about in testing form; everything was gutted inside, no rear, lights etc, but good to see them developing it.
GT4 guys were over on the test track, but no car on the track, sadly. It's nearly good to go, apparently.
Scott Walker owns some of the cars on display in the customer building, wild green tartan interior in a yellow car for one of them lol. I also asked him about the email I received from B&C regarding no black badges. They were kind of correct. Lotus are holding them for new cars. But this is based around a branding change, so no imitate GT/R/S Emira in coming. Black and yellow/white/silver is easier for marketing, basically. So all the new nose badges and wheel centres will be the same as what's currently on the steering wheel. Scott made a good point though, if you do swap the yellow out, make sure you keep them. Using me as an example, a First Edition Yellow Auto will be rare, so having this quirky OG yellow badge will keep it unique if I ever sell it or want to take it to a car show, so I may not swap them.
Right, onto the car!
Since a child, I always said my Ferrari would be red, my Porsche would be Black, my Lamborghini would be Orange and my Lotus would be Yellow. So, Yellow with a Full black pack. I had all the options apart from Home Link. The Interior is very well made. The only new cars I can compare it to is the Mercedes' I have had over the years. If you swapped the Lotus badges for Mercedes stars and sat me in it, I would not think twice. The quality is on par, perhaps better than my fully loaded E Class I just came out of. Any issues early cars may have had have been resolved, imo. Everything is perfect. Another quirk is that I went with Yellow stitching; the yellow is "Lotus yellow", so it's the same as the nose badge and wheel centres, not the car. Another reason why I may stick with the factory badges.
I understand people going for manual, in that old-school drivers mode, but the Auto sounds amazing. Having the car rev match on a downshift sounds unreal! Due to the lack of auto videos on YouTube, this caught me by surprise. Crackles, pops and bangs just driving around under 4k revs is quite the show. Many people stop to watch me drive by, cars on the road try to drive side by side to get a look, and people have wound down the window to ask for some revs lol. As the car is rare for now it attracts a lot of attention, I expect this to fade once more hit the road, but don't expect to go unnoticed in this thing! Everything else is to be expected, reading what others have written.
Issues; After having it for a few days I have noticed my rear bumper is not aligned correctly on the driver's side, so will get that sorted soon. And the Apple CarPlay lags when skipping songs on Spotify. I noticed this morning that my driver's seat belt is twisted. Apart from that, everything is perfect for now. Another 'issue' or happy mistake is they gave me full ceramic that I didn't pay for. I think this was a CS cock-up, as I did have it added but then removed it again. I assume they forgot to take it off the order/build sheet. Can't complain, even got a bag of cleaning stuff in the boot. During the day they also gave me money to spend in the shop, so got a nice book on the history of Lotus and a keyring thrown in!
All in all, very happy with day and car. Was a little lost for words when I pulled the cover off. Without getting the violins out, I come from a very poor background. Born on a council estate, with no real help in life, and had to work myself into a position where I'm financially sound and have enough assets built up to where I can now warrant being able to buy this car. So perhaps my view of the Emira is through rose-tinted glasses as it represents a little more than just a car to me, but I would say to anyone on the fence to stick it out and wait for the car, it's worth it!
