The instruments are digital and the infotainment is done through a touch screen with a reflection of the smartphone. Heating and ventilation controls are separate; an occupant wearing a helmet on a chart is a nice touch.
The driving position is good. I find the seats a little unsupportive, but my classmates don’t care. The pedals feel less shifted than the Evora and the steering wheel, too square for my liking and with the buttons too easily inadvertently tapped as you spin it, is at least widely adjustable. The stems are shared with Volvo and Polestar (other subsidiaries of Geely), which is not bad.
Keyless start is one of the new features of a Lotus, such as adaptive cruise control with speed limiter, traffic signal recognition, rear crossover alert and more. Things that are part of a great car company allow it. But the red flap on the home button suggests there’s still a bit of racism in the heart.
So there you have it. The V6 shoots with a cult zing. You can see the supercharger bypass actuator through the glass between the occupants and the motor, and the motor has a metal cover, rather than a plastic wrap. It looks good.
That said, the 50-meter test, how a car feels as soon as you walk away, could be more promising. It is difficult to measure revolutions accurately and it is easy to catch or slip some lost revolutions. But the journey is compounded and the steering is heavy (it is still hydraulically assisted).
What does not arrive is the immediate flow and the desired grace of the Alpine A110, which may not be surprising when the Emira weighs 1,440 kg and the 1,105 kg of the French car. I hear the argument that a Lotus should be the lightest car of any class in which it competes, but I suspect that Hethel would rather have a complete order book than an unchallenged scale; and with Emira exhausted for two years, he seems to have it.