Is it futile to compare the Emira with Porsche 718/Boxter/Caymen

[WAX3D]

100 people , kids , women , men of all ages etc . We have in the car park a emira and Cayman GTS , we then give them chance to walk round the cars and ask them to form a orderly queue behind the car they would pick .
My guess would be 90% will be lined up behind the lotus , it looks special , really special in the flesh .

 

[FederGigant]

I don't believe anyone referred to the engine as heavily detuned. The point was:

- We know you can get 430hp reliably from the engine
- We know the Emira is a tad heavier than the preceding Evora

So...it would only make sense to release a replacement that wasn't 'slower' than the car it's was replacing...

The i4 on the other hand....

True, but first the Emira is not the sportier GT version, but the entry level model whilst the Evora GT obviously wasn't. The old Cayman S also had 25 metric horsepower more than the new Cayman (325 to 300). And second they also claimed it was due to emissions. We will see if this was the case or not in the future.

 

[emiraspain]

It's going to be irritating if people keep asking me why I didn't buy a Cayman instead.

your answer "if you need to ask, you wouldnt understand the answer"

 

[Speedluvver]

The Exige Final Edition came in two flavours. The 390 which had I believe 396hp and the 420 which replaced the sport 410 and had 420hp. Most of the differences between the two cars was in the suspension, anti roll bars etc. In a straight line Lotus claimed the 420 was marginally quicker (3.3 vs 3.7) but in real life I don’t suppose anyone noticed. If there is to be an Emira Sprint (or other such designation) with a few more horses, I would expect Lotus will pile in the track oriented stuff, light weight seats, carbon etc and claim its quicker around a track, but don’t expect it to make much difference in a non track environment. Thats why I have no issue piling straight in on the V6 FE rather than waiting for the next version. My Evora S had “only” 345 hp and I never found that slow!

And it’s gonna be a lot more expensive…..

 

[Johnson]

Lotus clearly had the GTS 4.0 in mind as a direct competitor for the V6 FE and the 2.0 for the i4 FE. All credit to them for setting a clear (and challenging) target. They haven’t beaten Porsche overall, but that wasn’t realistic.

What they appear to have done is get close enough to cause a lot of people to think hard about what they want from a sportscar and whether the Emira or Cayman ticks more of their individual criteria. If that gets more people to do test drives that’s great. If it gets more people to even consider the Emira, that’s great too. That’s part of what “the other sportscar” means.

When they launched the Evora they pitched it between the (2009) Cayman and base 911. It beat the Cayman in ECOTY but cost more, but it was cheaper than a 911 and had +2 seating. What became apparent was trying to pitch it between two competitors (whilst superficially a clever move) confused a lot of people about what to compare it against. This time they’ve got clear competitors in their sights.

So does “The other sports car“ tagline refer directly to the Porsche 718 Cayman GTS? I’ve been confused by that ever since I saw it…

 

[xen]

True, but first the Emira is not the sportier GT version, but the entry level model whilst the Evora GT obviously wasn't. The old Cayman S also had 25 metric horsepower more than the new Cayman (325 to 300). And second they also claimed it was due to emissions. We will see if this was the case or not in the future.

All well and good but the V6 Emira wasn’t marketed as the ‘softer’ entry - level version - that’s the i4 (the one for women apparently?!?) which also happens to be quicker.

 

[LotusB]

It's probably because they thought it was 400 metric horsepower (Lotus in fact states 400 PS on the German website which is less than 400 of your British hp). Maybe we should look at the kW figure which is 298 and therefore 400hp/406PS. And by the way, the Evora GT 410 was 410hp/416 PS (metric again), which means that the Emira is only 10 hp down on power, not 16 as often stated.

Before this (mis)information gets spread further, let's nip it in the bud. You're talking about European Evora's. In that case, the Evora GT410 was 410hp/416ps.

However, in the US, we had true 416hp. Here's a link and a quote for you, directly from Lotus:

The Evora GT is powered by a specially calibrated and tuned higher-output version of Lotus’ supercharged, 3.5-litre 6-cylinder engine with integrated water-to-air charge cooler, producing 422 PS (416 bhp) at 7000 rpm and 317 lb-ft (430 Nm) of torque from 3500 rpm to give a 0-60 mph time of just 3.8 seconds. The automatic option has 332 lb-ft (450 Nm) and returns a similar acceleration time.

The new Lotus Evora GT for 2020 model year (North America) - Lotus Cars Media Site

media.lotuscars.com

 

[TomE]

People really got carried away here and it turned into a bit of an echo chamber with only good positive posts allowed and every dissenting opinion either forcefully untrue or relegated to a separate thread.

I’m not aware of the admins censoring or deleting any negative posts - maybe a few rude ones. I know a few tangent topics were requested to be moved to new threads.

A single marque or single model forum will often lean towards enthusiasm, that’s hardly surprising. But I think there’s a healthy amount of challenge and debate on here, and the majority of people do so constructively and respectfully.

 

[TomE]

So does “The other sports car“ tagline refer directly to the Porsche 718 Cayman GTS? I’ve been confused by that ever since I saw it…

That’s my interpretation from when the slogan first came out. In this segment there is an obvious choice (Cayman). I don’t mean anything derogatory by that - it’s a great car, has had loads of investment and development, drives very well and is popular. It’s a class leader and benchmark. Nothing wrong with buying a Cayman and loads do.

What the other part of the slogan means to me is a statement of intent by Lotus that the Emira will be the only credible alternative. Maybe not a Cayman-beater across the board, but good in enough areas to be worth serious consideration. They don’t need to significantly undermine Cayman sales, just get a few thousand per year. And if they’d said something that implied “Cayman-beater” it wasn’t going to be credible.

 

[Johnson]

That’s my interpretation from when the slogan first came out. In this segment there is an obvious choice (Cayman). I don’t mean anything derogatory by that - it’s a great car, has had loads of investment and development, drives very well and is popular. It’s a class leader and benchmark. Nothing wrong with buying a Cayman and loads do.

What the other part of the slogan means to me is a statement of intent by Lotus that the Emira will be the only credible alternative. Maybe not a Cayman-beater across the board, but good in enough areas to be worth serious consideration. They don’t need to significantly undermine Cayman sales, just get a few thousand per year. And if they’d said something that implied “Cayman-beater” it wasn’t going to be credible.

The Cayman is a fabulous vehicle. If it looked like the Emira I’d buy one immediately.

I suppose the Alpine 110 and the (latest tweaked) Supra are comparable too. Both wanting compared to the Porsche. But still wonderful cars in their own right.

 

[CarGuy07]

The last few posts reminded me of something I thought of in the shower yesterday and subsequently forgot to mention it here. Does “THE other sports car” mean they are accepting to be number 2 (akin to Avis’s “we try harder” slogan) or are they saying THE other main sports car? If the former, then it’s kind of sad because they’ve set themselves up to be number 2 from the start. If the latter, then IMO we should expect a higher performing vehicle which it seems to have missed the mark.

 

[SlavaUkraini]

100 people , kids , women , men of all ages etc . We have in the car park a emira and Cayman GTS , we then give them chance to walk round the cars and ask them to form a orderly queue behind the car they would pick .
My guess would be 90% will be lined up behind the lotus , it looks special , really special in the flesh .

Sure, but if you let them drive each one then their opinion will probably change. Let’s be brutally honest about where the performance stands at the moment based on the reviews so far. I wish we had production cars given for reviews instead of again hoping for things to be tweaked before delivery.

I’m not ragging on the Emira (not trying to anyhow), but the FE price is definitely up there. Base model price is an entirely different animal and more in line with the performance we saw in the reviews in my opinion.

 

[TomE]

The last few posts reminded me of something I thought of in the shower yesterday and subsequently forgot to mention it here. Does “THE other sports car” mean they are accepting to be number 2 (akin to Avis’s “we try harder” slogan) or are they saying THE other main sports car? If the former, then it’s kind of sad because they’ve set themselves up to be number 2 from the start. If the latter, then IMO we should expect a higher performing vehicle which it seems to have missed the mark.

A mixture of the two. Basically saying there are two contenders for your attention - the obvious one that immediately comes to mind, and the other one. It’s now not such a clear cut “one is better”, as it depends on what matters to you when you buy a sportscar and for some people “the other” will now tick more boxes.

So not looking for Lotus to take a huge percentage of sales off Porsche, just to sell a decent number and sell more than the Evora. It’s not binary in the sense of win-lose. Emira being at #2 in terms of sales behind Cayman means thousands of individual wins with each new Emira customer. For every one of those sales, the Emira is first choice for someone.

 

[Leonard]

A mixture of the two. Basically saying there are two contenders for your attention - the obvious one that immediately comes to mind, and the other one. It’s now not such a clear cut “one is better”, as it depends on what matters to you when you buy a sportscar and for some people “the other” will now tick more boxes.

So not looking for Lotus to take a huge percentage of sales off Porsche, just to sell a decent number and sell more than the Evora. It’s not binary in the sense of win-lose. Emira being at #2 in terms of sales behind Cayman means thousands of individual wins with each new Emira customer. For every one of those sales, the Emira is first choice for someone.

Terrible 1980s marketing. Feels like an electric razor slogan.
Just as well that in the main the cars speak for themselves

 

[CarGuy07]

They should have copied Coca-Cola and went with “Drive Happiness” as slogan.

 

[TomE]

Agree as a slogan it comes across as trying too hard to be clever or mysterious.

There was nothing wrong with For The Drivers or Handbuilt In Hethel, but neither are strictly true anymore

At least we haven't got the terrible "Faceless People" campaign used for the Evora!

Lotus' faceless ad campaign | Autocar

Lotus has launched a strange ad campiagn featuring "faceless people" for its forthcoming Eagle

www.autocar.co.uk

 

[Leonard]

Agree as a slogan it comes across as trying too hard to be clever or mysterious.

There was nothing wrong with For The Drivers or Handbuilt In Hethel, but neither are strictly true anymore

At least we haven't got the terrible "Faceless People" campaign used for the Evora!

Lotus' faceless ad campaign | Autocar

Lotus has launched a strange ad campiagn featuring "faceless people" for its forthcoming Eagle

www.autocar.co.uk

Good god thats terrifying 😳 😂

 

[MCS]

The last few posts reminded me of something I thought of in the shower yesterday and subsequently forgot to mention it here. Does “THE other sports car” mean they are accepting to be number 2 (akin to Avis’s “we try harder” slogan) or are they saying THE other main sports car? If the former, then it’s kind of sad because they’ve set themselves up to be number 2 from the start. If the latter, then IMO we should expect a higher performing vehicle which it seems to have missed the mark.

The Pepsi of cola drinks…

 

[Tonyshepp]

I wonder how many new deposits Lotus have received since the reviews were published.? That's the benchmark, if there's lots coming in then they have achieved their goal. If it's stalled I'd be expecting a b@@@@@cking from Geely.

 

[Leonard]

I wonder how many new deposits Lotus have received since the reviews were published.? That's the benchmark, if there's lots coming in then they have achieved their goal. If it's stalled I'd be expecting a b@@@@@cking from Geely.

It would be interesting to know if the deposit count is shrinking, stable or growing