Lotus will delay its next-gen Elan in order to develop its own V8 for the new Esprit supercar.
Little Lotus dropped a bombshell at last year’s Paris Motor Show, announcing plans to roll out five all-new products in quick succession over the next few years. Power for most, perhaps all, the offerings would come from Toyota, which has had a long-running relationship with Lotus.
Skeptics have questioned the British maker’s ability to fund the project, which carried a projected cost of about $1.2 billion. And, indeed, it now appears Lotus is rejigging its plans, but not because they were too ambitious, the maker insists. If anything, the Brits are looking at an even more elaborate strategy, one that could see them power those future offerings with a trio of engines developed in-house.
What appears certain is that the striking new Lotus Esprit, which is expected to carry a price tag nudging up towards $200,000, will rely on a new, naturally-aspirated liter V-8 of “under” 5.0-liters in displacement. Originally, the Esprit, Elite and Eterne models were all going to turn to Toyota, which had agreed to share a supercharged version of the V-8 it uses in the brutish Lexus IS-F.
Expect that with the in-house V-8, the Esprit will get “horsepower at least in the mid-500 range,” Kevin Smith, the U.S. spokesman for Lotus, confided in TheDetroitBureau.com.
To come up with the cash needed to develop the new engine, the next-generation Lotus Elan will be delayed until the rest of the new product line-up rolls out, which should mean sometime after 2016, it appears.
Lotus will delay the new Elan until around 2016.
For those who were less than overwhelmed with the idea of paying stiff premiums for Toyota powertrains, the good news is that the Esprit might not be the only one to get a Lotus-built driveline. The new V8 could very well be shared in other models, like the Eterne, company officials reveal.
Meanwhile, the new V-8 will use a modular design that should allow Lotus to develop spin-offs that include both a V-6 and an Inline-4. The latter configuration appears to be the most uncertain, Smith calling the possibility of spinning off a four-cylinder engine “an open-ended question.”
The 6-banger is expected to go into the Elan, while the smaller engine could wind up in something like a future-generation Elise.
Only some months ago, Lotus CEO Dany Behar and Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda cozied up to one another at a news event outlining their ongoing plans. Have relations soured? Some sources suggest they have, though others suggest Lotus can’t afford to walk away from the long-running partnership – at least until it knows for sure it can come up with the full trio of in-house engines. If not, a Toyota I-4 may very well remain in its future.
Might Lotus further tweak its product roll-out? Despite skeptics, it insists everything else is on schedule, starting with the current roll-out of the Evora S, which will be followed by the Evora IPS, later this year.
If anything is uncertain, it’s the maker’s plans for the Elise and Exige. The latter nameplate was notably absent from the Paris mega-reveal, but the Elise on display featured a coupe roof, rather than a convertible top, so TheDetroitBureau.com’s source, admittedly “being coy,” suggests there may be more news on the Elise/Exige front at a later date.