1995 Lotus Esprit S4s Coupe 2-door 2.2l on 2040-cars

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Lotus builds the final Elise, Exige and Evora

Lotus has closed one of the most important chapters of its history: It has ended production of the Elise after a 25-year run. It also built the final example of the Exige, which was closely related to the Elise, and of the Evora, which was bigger and more comfort-oriented. We knew that this day was right around the corner, Lotus announced Final Edition variants of the Elise and the Exige in February 2021, and the British company confirmed that it's keeping the very last examples of the three models for itself. Shown above, the last Elise is a Sport 240 Final Edition model in yellow. The last Exige is a Cup 430 Final Edition finished in British Racing Green, while the last Evora is a GT430 Sport model that wears Dark Metallic Gray paint. All three cars will join the carmaker's growing collection of heritage models. Lotus built 51,738 examples of the Elise, the Exige, and the Evora combined over the past quarter of a century. While that doesn't sound like much, not when Ford sold over 787,000 units of the F-Series in pandemic-ridden 2020, that figure represents nearly half of the cars Lotus has built since its inception. It's worth noting that this number doesn't include the Elise derivatives made for third-party companies; the original Tesla Roadster was built on an Elise-sourced chassis, and the Opel Speedster was developed and manufactured by Lotus. It sounds like the three nameplates have been consigned to the pantheon of automotive history — at least for now. Lotus isn't standing still, however. Funded by Volvo parent company Geely, it unveiled the Emira, a coupe powered by a mid-mounted engine, earlier in 2021, and it's planning to launch its first crossover in spring 2022. The soft-roader will be the first in a series of mass-produced electric models from the company. Looking much further ahead, Lotus will also release a sedan and an electric sports car developed jointly with Alpine.

Next Lotus Elise to draw from its roots

Recently-appointed Lotus CEO Jean-Marc Gales told Autocar that work on the new Lotus Elise, which is coming in 2020, is already underway, and thanks to growing sales, the automaker is set to make a profit for the first time in 20 years. Gales also dropped some details about the new sports cars' design philosophy and underpinnings. According to the report, the new Elise will utilize the same aluminum chassis technology found in the original Elise and won't bear any resemblance to the 2010 Elise concept. Instead, the upcoming vehicle will uphold its roots with a lightweight design that emphasizes driver involvement at an affordable price. The new Elise is rumored to weigh in at roughly 1,984 pounds, almost 384 pounds more than the original Elise. In order to meet US crash ratings, the Elise will most likely be wider, but have the same length as the current model. Power will probably come from a Toyota unit producing between 134 horsepower and 245 horsepower. The Elise is expected to come to the US where it will be offered with a manual and automatic transmission, which will both come from Toyota as well. Gales claims Lotus has more orders now than in any year in the last 10 years, with the US being one of the automaker's most important markets. Related Video:

2015 Japanese Grand Prix is a little Mercedes, a lot of zen

Just one week on from the issues in Singapore Mercedes-AMG Petronas appeared to have solved its clamp problems and everything else. Daniil Kvyat at Infiniti Red Bull Racing took the two Free Practice scalps on Friday, but when it came time for qualifying the front of the grid looked really familiar: Mercedes' Nico Rosberg took his second pole position of the season, Lewis Hamilton next to him in second. Kvyat had a hand in that, too, the Russian getting into a big accident in Q3 when he put two wheels on the grass heading into the hairpin and veered into the tire wall so hard that he flipped. That ended qualifying before a number of drivers had a chance to improve their times, Hamilton among them. That's how Valtteri Bottas got in third for Willliams ahead of Sebastian Vettel fourth for Ferrari. Felipe Massa had the second Williams in fifth, ahead of Kimi Raikkonen in the second Ferrari. Daniel Ricciardo lined up sixth for Infiniti Red Bull Racing, a team we're going to have to enjoy watching for the rest of the season since it might not exist come 2016. Romain Grosjean gave Lotus some good news by getting into eighth, the team so strapped for cash that it couldn't get into its hospitality area, so it held press conferences outside and ate at Bernie Ecclestone's Paddock Club. Sergio Perez took ninth for Sahara Force India, and Kvyat slotted into tenth after not setting a time. The Russsian's race would begin from the pit lane once his mechanics rebuilt his car. It wouldn't be a Formula One start lately without someone at the front having clutch problems. This time it was pole man Rosberg, whose power unit got too hot and put him a few horsepower down on Hamilton through Turns 1 and 2. That's half of how Hamilton took the lead from the lights going out, and the Brit kept it throughout the race. Rosberg, however, said his race was lost when Hamilton pushed him wide through Turn 2, a move Hamilton defended. Rosberg finished almost 19 seconds behind his teammate, a gap that probably isn't fully explained by that opening incident. Hamilton's race was so uneventful that we almost never saw him on camera – that is, we saw him so much less than we usually see him when he's out in front and unpressured that Nikki Lauda said he'd ask Ecclestone why the cameras avoided him. The conspiracy theory holds that FOM was punishing Mercedes for not supplying Red Bull with engines next year.