eclat2emira
Emira Maniac
elle être - "she is"
That's what Google translate told me when I figured eletre could also be "elle etre" in French - quite apt for the birth of a new car declaring "She is!"
Okay, it's a bit like Dr. Frankenstein declaring his monster is alive but we'll gloss over that!
This is a BIG car, but a few clever styling tricks have mitigated that - oversize wheels, black roof, large black sill area, all highly slimming. The body sculpting and "porosity" help with that too. Yes, there are some Lamborghini Urus overtones, and some other Lambo cues like the hexagon motif in the dynamic lower front grille. Check out the rear valance/exhaust grille on the Miura with its elongated hexagons, the Marzal (inside and out) and interior design on other Lambos for lots of hexagons - they almost own this device, just Google "Lamborghini Hexagons". That's not a criticism though - I love hexagons creatively used in design.
But this would look very different to a Urus side-by-side, with quite different proportions and stance. (Eletre - long, lean and elegant; Urus - squat and purposeful, predatory and ready to pounce.) Need to see it in the flesh but the exterior styling looks like a winner to me and you can see the common design language shared with the emira and evija, so a strong family look emerging - evidence of a cohesive over-arching design strategy.
I also saw some Aston Martin style elements in there - I see DB11 (rather than DBX) in the rear end and rear three-quarter (boot/trunk profile, c-pillar form, two-tone split) and the dynamic front grille is similar to that on the DBS GT Zagato.
- video of grille opening.
The interior looks great - just love it. Novel layout, they've played with the traditional forms and volumes and created some great new finishes and materials, while keeping some analogue controls as they did with the emira - a real blessing. What I love most about the interior is it looks super-premium without looking blingy; I hate blingy and it would be so not Lotus. They have also achieved this without resorting to conventional premium materials (wood, leather, piano black, etc) to tell us it's premium - no mean feat. Do not underestimate this as a real design achievement and one which is slightly reminiscent of the design language in Volvo's Polestar brand.
Of course no word on how it drives yet but I'd put money on it being superb and very Lotus.
In an increasingly busy premium SUV segment, Lotus may well have created their own niche by being true to Lotus values of innovation and ride & handling, while successfully deploying their new design language. As ever, the customers will be the ultimate arbiters of how well they have succeeded.
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