kratedisease
Emira Fanatic
Oh, the dilemma.
I've been on this journey since the launch at Goodwood 2021 - when stocks were sky high, interest rates were rock bottom and everyone was on cloud-nine after emerging from the doomsday of Covid. Life was good and the sun was beating down on that Seneca Blue Emira sitting on the 'headline' Lotus stand with a price tag 'starting from £59,995.
I was 'all in' from the minute I saw it and hastily placed my deposit whilst cursing my better half for not wanting to come on the first day of Goodwood, as I knew I'd now already be in a queue of other earlier depositors.
TIme moved on and the excitement grew in anticipation that I would own this stunning car by late summer 2022.
We then got the figures for the FE, and at £75k I had to swallow hard to accept my unrealistic hope that it might have been closer to £69,995. But hey, an extra £5k on finance is no problem, I thought, because that would only be a few quid extra.
Then we get the on the road price....ahh that suddenly makes the car £3k more and yet again you're too deep into the journey to bail.
Fast forward a bit and suddenly you get the eagerly awaited call that you're one of the lucky few to 'lock in' your spec for the much anticipated production of your car and suddenly the cost goes out of the window again. After all, you're lucky to be getting it because they are sold 2 years into the future.
From memory, the 'lock in' timeline gave you a matter of days to confirm your binding spec and another £3k to show your willingness to proceed, but hey, it's just exciting to be on the home straight, right?
Spec gets locked in and I choose the launch spec, almost to the final nut because no one has even seen any of the other colours and I don't want to balls it up and choose the wrong one!
Promises then come and go that we'll see different colours and that we can all believe that Magma looks just like the burnt orange, or bright red, or tri-colour Alfa red on the configurator, and so on, but I still want this car as much as when I first saw it.
Friends are now asking me if I'm really buying a Lotus and 'why isn't it here by now?' But I dismiss it and explain that it's coming soon!
Goodwood 2022 then reignites the flame as I can finally see the Emira in different colours and I'm happy that I chose the Seneca blue but a quick visit to the stand host reveals that due to 'production delays' by car will now not be with me until November 2022
I'm still buzzing at this point, even if I was a bit annoyed by the delay.
Despite the costs spiralling and the dates shifting, the world starts to become a different place and suddenly the investments that were doing well, are now not, and the word on the street is that a recession is coming.
More promises come and go from Lotus, more delays, more increases in interest rates come thick and fast and I haven't even driven the car yet!
Finally, I get a test drive. It's at Rybook in Bristol and I'm the first person to drive the car. I instantly fall in love with it when I see it again and all my doubts and and reservations are abated. I can't wait for to get my full 45-60 mins behind the wheel, even though it's touring spec and not my ordered sport setup - Rybrook were great and very helpful but it's the first time I've had a test drive where I was sat in the passenger seat for the first 5-10 minutes, but who cares as long as I enjoy the drive when I get my turn? Well, when I got my turn, the test route was terrible. Start off from a pub carpark straight onto a a road full of speed bumps and then basically an A road and a motorway back to the dealer, all in about 20-25 mins. Wow!
The car didn't disappoint at all and, although it was tour spec which was a bit soft for me, I gave it a glowing review and because I'm not a quitter and I actually tried to gleam the best out of the route (in my head) to convince myself that 18 months of waiting was not wasted.
More time passes and more delays. Reviews are so-so, people are getting fed up with the ever moving goal posts and I've also cross shopped other cars as 'I'm not going another summer without a nice car to enjoy.'
And here we are now. TomE has basically declared that he might cancel the order and never buy a Lotus again, people are waiting at home for deliveries that don't even turn up, Emiraspain sold out for a small £6k profit, die hard early-depositors are dropping like flys, about 10-15% of the delivered UK cars are on the market or have been re-sold and we're hearing about seat belts failing on the first day amongst other unacceptable 'teething issues'
So for me, I'm not out yet but it's just the wind stopping the door from closing behind me at this point.
I've got a 2nd test drive on Tuesday (shoot me down for taking 2 by all means) but its the sport suspension that I've ordered so I can't have come this far without exhausting all avenues.
I may be hooked again by Wednesday once I've taken another sniff of the Lotus drug, so watch this space....
Your not the only one that is back and forth on this EMIRA. I believe the majority are and even two of the biggest early cheerleaders like TomE and Evotion (which bike Youtube) have lost a great amount of enthusiasm. Evotion even ended up getting a preowned Ferrari to hold him over.
Patience is a virtue. Those who don't drop out will be rewarded.
