latest colour info...

[eclat2emira]

I was at the viewing at Parks of Hamilton (Scotland) on Friday afternoon - wow!

The only "Junior" Supercar aspect of the Emira is the engine type and straight-line performance - make no mistake, in the flesh the Emira has Supercar looks and presence.

In my eyes, this is the most accomplished sports car design since the Ian Callum designed Aston Martin Vantage. it is well proportioned, handsome, beautiful, aggressive, purposeful, poised, dramatic and fluid. Achieving all of that in one design is a simply phenomenal achievement that the entire team led by Russell Carr should be congratulated on.

The only slight reservations I had before viewing, based on my own observations from videos and also comments here, were that the roof-line might be just a touch on the high side and it might be too wide for its overall size. These reservations evaporated immediately on viewing in the flesh.

COLOURS - GREEN
I'll call this breaking news as I've not seen it mentioned before here. The green samples are incorrect and the actual green will be lighter - more in line with what you see on the configurator. I was told this by Alastair Florance, Group PR Manager. He said they had just discovered this week that the green samples were wrong (too dark) and new samples will be issued. This puts green back into my short-list!

COLOURS - NIMBUS
I've seen lots of comments about this colour - the simplest and most helpful thing I can say is it's silver, plain and simple and there's nothing wrong with that. It's not a warm silver as the configurator suggests, it's not a cool bluey silver - it's neutral, not unlike my Arctic silver 996 Carrera 4S. One of my options is now silver with black pack, diamond cut alloys and red and black interior. The fact this looks not unlike Gordon Murray's T.50 for 1/30th of the price is remarkable - in fact the Emira is a better looking car than the T.50!

Final note for now...

WHEELS
The diamond cut wheels look incredible, and what I love about them is that the cut and lacquered faces have a dull rather than bright finish which gives them a purposeful, engineered look rather than a "blingy" look. Cool as you like.

 

[Nova]

Very nice! Thanks for your impressions.

 

[donskibeat]

Thanks for that, very helpful - any comments on the red or yellow?

 

[TomE]

Useful info, many thanks.

But a massive dropping of the ball by Lotus on the green paint. The sample must have been seen by numerous Lotus people, including the design team, if not before the dealer roadshow then at least at the first dealer roadshow. Russell was at the first B&C event for example. And multiple customers raised concerns about how dark it was and were basically told “yes, sorry, that’s how it is”. But it’s taken nearly 3 weeks for them to realise it’s wrong? That’s really really poor. What next? “Oh yes, we can do metallic yellow after all”?

Good point about the diamond cut wheels, they’re basically matte finishes on each surface. The diamond cuts on my Evora are the same and look great. The black and silver wheel options are both gloss.

I saw the T.50 at Goodwood today (the grey prototype and the red Niki Lauda commemorative). It’s a stunning piece of engineering but I’m not a fan (haha!) of the looks, either side profile or front on. But they ran it in anger on track and the noise! Wow, just wow! Like an F1 car.

 

[Leonard]

They can't have got the green colour sample wrong surely....?
If it is now 'incorrect' surely it must be in response to customer feedback?

 

[eclat2emira]

They can't have got the green colour sample wrong surely....?
If it is now 'incorrect' surely it must be in response to customer feedback?

Alastair said the samples were made by a 3rd party and that somehow the green had been accepted and sent out when it was darker than it was supposed to be, so the line is definitely that it was wrong, not that they were changing it in response to feedback.

I was quite surprised to hear that, my frustration tempered by the fact it was welcome news that the green would be lighter.

 

[Leonard]

Alastair said the samples were made by a 3rd party and that somehow the green had been accepted and sent out when it was darker than it was supposed to be, so the line is definitely that it was wrong, not that they were changing it in response to feedback.

I was quite surprised to hear that, my frustration tempered by the fact it was welcome news that the green would be lighter.

3rd party paint, why?
If the greens wrong then what's to say they are all wrong

 

[eclat2emira]

Thanks for that, very helpful - any comments on the red or yellow?

Hi, seen first hand, the red looks like a true "pillar box" red, with an added metallic element. It's a very nice looking colour, just not my pick for this car.

The yellow is what I'd describe as a true yellow chrome or chromium yellow, both terms used for oil paints, acrylics and enamels. This means it is not a washed out or lemony yellow but a strong yellow that stops short of looking remotely orangey. It must be close to Ferrari's Giallo Fly or Lamborghini's signature yellow, so a classic performance car yellow. It will be quite stunning to behold - and visible from quite some distance!

 

[eclat2emira]

3rd party paint, why?
If the greens wrong then what's to say they are all wrong

I can only presume because their own plant is not up and running yet - or because the volume production of hundreds of small samples is a very different process to painting cars.

With regard to the other colours, I would imagine they were subject to some extra scrutiny after the issue with the green was discovered.

 

[eclat2emira]

Useful info, many thanks.

But a massive dropping of the ball by Lotus on the green paint. The sample must have been seen by numerous Lotus people, including the design team, if not before the dealer roadshow then at least at the first dealer roadshow. Russell was at the first B&C event for example. And multiple customers raised concerns about how dark it was and were basically told “yes, sorry, that’s how it is”. But it’s taken nearly 3 weeks for them to realise it’s wrong? That’s really really poor. What next? “Oh yes, we can do metallic yellow after all”?

Good point about the diamond cut wheels, they’re basically matte finishes on each surface. The diamond cuts on my Evora are the same and look great. The black and silver wheel options are both gloss.

I saw the T.50 at Goodwood today (the grey prototype and the red Niki Lauda commemorative). It’s a stunning piece of engineering but I’m not a fan (haha!) of the looks, either side profile or front on. But they ran it in anger on track and the noise! Wow, just wow! Like an F1 car.


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Totally with you on the T.50 styling Tom, slab-sided from some angles and the front is a little bland for my taste. While there is no doubt that anything designed by Gordon Murray will perform its task perfecly, a bit of styling is sometimes needed to render it aesthetically pleasing. The F1 was one of the best ever meldings of functional design and styling, the latter by Peter Stevens.

 

[TomE]

Alastair said the samples were made by a 3rd party and that somehow the green had been accepted and sent out when it was darker than it was supposed to be, so the line is definitely that it was wrong, not that they were changing it in response to feedback.

I was quite surprised to hear that, my frustration tempered by the fact it was welcome news that the green would be lighter.

It’s a massive own goal for Lotus. Doesn’t give a good impression of their supposedly improved quality control. And will raise questions, rightly or wrongly, about what else is wrong. The skeptics will have a field day with this.

 

[Leonard]

It’s a massive own goal for Lotus. Doesn’t give a good impression of their supposedly improved quality control. And will raise questions, rightly or wrongly, about what else is wrong. The skeptics will have a field day with this.

It's one of many errors/contradictory information unfortunately.
You are right though, it 'reeks' of nobody having ownership of these simple tasks, which doesn't give a good impression in regards to current or future QC

 

[Singularity]

Alastair said the samples were made by a 3rd party and that somehow the green had been accepted and sent out when it was darker than it was supposed to be, so the line is definitely that it was wrong, not that they were changing it in response to feedback.

I was quite surprised to hear that, my frustration tempered by the fact it was welcome news that the green would be lighter.

Great summary of the car, I agree there’s not a bad angle to it at all. Beautifully proportioned whichever way you look at it and to meld that with what I understand will be excellent aerodynamics for this price point is something the Lotus team can be rightly proud of.

Thanks for sharing about the green. It was one of our options before seeing the sample disc in daylight yesterday, but the sample looked very, very dark and that put both me (and my wife) off the colour. I remarked about the green colour looking very dark to two of the lotus guys (one of them was quite senior but I won’t name him!) and neither made any comment about it. We even made the comparison with a another green Lotus parked outside which was a much brighter shade; apologies as I’m not up on the existing Lotus palette but I’d describe the parked car as much closer to British Racing Green and it was this colour I was expecting. If the Emira green is lighter, then it might be back in the running!

 

[TomE]

You’re right, it’s another example of “old Lotus” ways. Don’t they realise this sort of thing massively undermines all the great work they’ve done on design, materials, manufacturing etc? Most of the people coming to Lotus for the first time are worried about quality, dealer service etc. Come on Lotus, you told us things were changing - show us that’s really true.

 

[Rob]

I was at the viewing at Parks of Hamilton (Scotland) on Friday afternoon - wow!

The only "Junior" Supercar aspect of the Emira is the engine type and straight-line performance - make no mistake, in the flesh the Emira has Supercar looks and presence.

In my eyes, this is the most accomplished sports car design since the Ian Callum designed Aston Martin Vantage. it is well proportioned, handsome, beautiful, aggressive, purposeful, poised, dramatic and fluid. Achieving all of that in one design is a simply phenomenal achievement that the entire team led by Russell Carr should be congratulated on.

The only slight reservations I had before viewing, based on my own observations from videos and also comments here, were that the roof-line might be just a touch on the high side and it might be too wide for its overall size. These reservations evaporated immediately on viewing in the flesh.

COLOURS - GREEN
I'll call this breaking news as I've not seen it mentioned before here. The green samples are incorrect and the actual green will be lighter - more in line with what you see on the configurator. I was told this by Alastair Florance, Group PR Manager. He said they had just discovered this week that the green samples were wrong (too dark) and new samples will be issued. This puts green back into my short-list!

COLOURS - NIMBUS
I've seen lots of comments about this colour - the simplest and most helpful thing I can say is it's silver, plain and simple and there's nothing wrong with that. It's not a warm silver as the configurator suggests, it's not a cool bluey silver - it's neutral, not unlike my Arctic silver 996 Carrera 4S. One of my options is now silver with black pack, diamond cut alloys and red and black interior. The fact this looks not unlike Gordon Murray's T.50 for 1/30th of the price is remarkable - in fact the Emira is a better looking car than the T.50!

Final note for now...

WHEELS
The diamond cut wheels look incredible, and what I love about them is that the cut and lacquered faces have a dull rather than bright finish which gives them a purposeful, engineered look rather than a "blingy" look. Cool as you like.

Thanks for the heads up, very good information. My preference is for a classic British combination- green with tan , if its closer to the configurator colour all well & good - it brings upper black pack back into play for me. Given Australian cars are expected months after the Brits I’m hoping we will see actual production cars colourways in time to modify our orders. Hopefully all of these production samples will be spot on soon so we may move forward with confidence and enjoy the anticipation.

 

[VL3X]

Hi, seen first hand, the red looks like a true "pillar box" red, with an added metallic element. It's a very nice looking colour, just not my pick for this car.

The yellow is what I'd describe as a true yellow chrome or chromium yellow, both terms used for oil paints, acrylics and enamels. This means it is not a washed out or lemony yellow but a strong yellow that stops short of looking remotely orangey. It must be close to Ferrari's Giallo Fly or Lamborghini's signature yellow, so a classic performance car yellow. It will be quite stunning to behold - and visible from quite some distance!

Giallo yellow was exactly my thoughts upon seeing the samples. I had my 300ZX painted the same color.. Here are some pics for an example.

Also... If they can change the green they can surely adjust the other colors since feedback has been rather poor..

 

[TomE]

I think it’s less lemony and more mustardy than that.

And yes, please can they adjust some of the other colours!

 

[Pegasi]

I am all for it. A lighter green even better!

I had wondered if the car would look wide in person...

 

[eclat2emira]

I think it’s less lemony and more mustardy than that.

And yes, please can they adjust some of the other colours!

I think this may be a truer representation of Giallo Fly

 

[Pegasi]

This is just my opinion and I said it before. I think Lotus is making changes on spec and price as this evolves. And why not?! Seems like a smart thing for a small company. Just trying to strike that balance of costs. And of course they will not give us everything up front, that would take away from future upgrades. Best believe they are lining those up too. 2nd Edition - Steering wheel strip for the manual now available!