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Lotus Emira V6 First Edition finally being delivered to customers

In July 2021, Lotus revealed the Emira, its final ICE-powered sports car before flipping to an all-electric lineup. By the time we got to drive it in December 2023, our Zac Palmer wrote, "you can’t spend $105,900 on a single car that would be more fun than the V6 First Edition I drove. There just isnÂ’t another option out there that drives like the Emira, putting it in a class of its own for the enthusiast who wants the most unfiltered experience possible." The problem for Emira buyers reading that — the ones sitting on reservations more than two years old — was that none of them had their cars. Last March, Gator Motorsports' franchise Indy Lotus in Indianapolis sent a letter to reservation holders explaining the holdup as U.S. certification, specifically certification by the California Air Resources Board (CARB). At the same time, CarBuzz reported that Emira V6 First Edition units destined for the U.S. would land here last summer but wouldn't be released to customers until between mid-October and mid-December. Except Lotus dealers then had to explain to buyers in January of this year that cars here were getting a software update, likely for certification purposes. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had given the Emira its blessing, but Lotus didn't want to deliver units that couldn't be registered in the 14 states that adhere to CARB mandates, so it held all of them (and perhaps prevented some car-flipping). At the end of last month, the Californians approved of what Lotus had done with its engine programming, freeing the Emira to head to good homes. At one point, Lotus planned to have cars here in time to get into the 2022 model year, now it's a 2024. On the Emira Forum, in a thread about USA and Canadian delivery that's grown to more than 500 pages, someone posted the CARB approval on March 2, page 461 of the thread. The first response from a forum member in Stage 4 of the Five Stages of Grief — mentioned just four posts earlier — was, "Is this legit? This isn't something you did as a joke on the forum?" It's no joke, other forum posters are reporting that they are receiving their cars. Nay, twas not a joke. What's also serious is a higher price for the eventual entry-level trim, the Emira First Edition powered by an AMG-sourced turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine.

Genii capitalizing on Lotus F1 tech with new sports car?

Detractors will tell you that there's little to be applied from Formula One racing to the cars we drive, but what about the cars most of us could only dream of driving? We're talking about supercars from the likes of Ferrari and McLaren - two hugely successful F1 racing teams that have successfully made the transition into building exotic sports cars for the road. And soon there may be one more.
That would be the Lotus F1 Team, which is rumored to be working on a sports car project of its own. Now we know what you might be thinking: Lotus already makes sports cars. Indeed they do, only the F1 team has nothing more to do with the automaker behind the Exige and Evora than the name they share. Today the team (formerly known as Toleman, Benetton and Renault) is owned by Genii Capital, whose chairman Gerald Lopez recently confirmed the rumors to Auto Motor und Sport: "We are going to develop a carbon chassis for a sports car that can be built in large quantities.... But this has nothing to do with Formula 1."
With little to nothing in the way of details available, the circulating rumors had tied the venture to on-again, off-again Italian auto marque De Tomaso. But our source at ATS (which recently bought the rights to the De Tomaso name following Gian Mario Rossignolo's aborted attempt to revive it) firmly denied the prospect of any such collaboration. Spokesmen for the Lotus F1 Team would not divulge any information; neither would the press office for parent company Genii Capital, leaving the door wide open to speculation once again.

Lotus CEO busted doing 102 mph uses 'Test Driver' defense

A UK police officer busted Lotus CEO Jean-Marc Gales doing 102 miles per hour in a Lotus on the A11 motorway near the carmaker's Hethel HQ. Doing 102 mph in a Lotus isn't a problem. Doing 102 mph in a Lotus in a 70-mph zone, however, is. The even bigger problem for Gales was that according to the sentencing guidelines, the minimum spanking for such hijinks is three points added to the driver's record and a GBP100 fine. The biggest problem for Gales was that he already had eight points on his license for previous offenses. At 12 points, a UK driver can be banned from driving for six months, and Gales did not want to be one tiny point away from that fate. Gales could have explained himself in court, but he had his solicitor, Simon Nicholls, do it for him. Nicholls prepared an arcane quodlibet that could be called the "Test Driver Defense." The premise was that as CEO of a sports car company, Gales felt compelled to test drive his company's newest products, and that Gales' hands-on, wide-open-throttle approach to his job is partly "responsible for the remarkable turnaround in the fortunes of the company." As such, it would be "vital" for Gales to continue doing his work, beneficial to the country as it were. The cheekiest bit came when Nicholls said, "Of course [Gales] was driving very carefully but was not driving in accordance with the speed limit," and that sentencing guidelines are "handrails not handcuffs." The solicitor furthermore suggested that instead of assessing points, the court should issue a 30-day driving ban and a fine. And the court agreed. On top of ordering Gales into the shotgun seat, the magistrate instructed Gales to pay GBP666, plus GBP100 for court costs, and GBP66 for a victim surcharge. That's about $1,400 in US funds, but no points. Then the magistrate said Gales - who wasn't present - should stick to test tracks instead of public roads for his triple-digit duties. The episode proves that Lotus not only knows how to add lightness to cars, it knows how to do the same for justice. Related Video: