Lotus Emira V6 First Edition 2022 UK review Car News

The instruments are digital and the infotainment is done via a touch screen with smartphone duplication. Heating and ventilation controls are separate; an occupant wearing a hard hat in a graphic is a cute touch.

The driving position is good. I find the seats a bit unfavorable, but my colleagues don’t care. The pedals are less offset than the Evora’s and the steering wheel, too square for my liking and with buttons too easily inadvertently hit when you turn it, is at least largely adjustable. The rods are shared with Volvo and Polestar (other Geely subsidiaries), which isn’t a bad thing.

There’s keyless start, one of many new features from a Lotus, like adaptive cruise control with speed limiter, road sign recognition, rear cross traffic alert and more. Things that are part of a big car company allow that. But the red flap on the start button suggests that there is still some fire in the soul.

So there is. The V6 pulls with a cultured zing. You can see the supercharger bypass actuator through the glass that sits between the occupants and the engine, and the engine is covered in metal rather than wrapped in plastic. It looks good.

That said, the 50-meter test – what a car feels as soon as you start – might hold more promise. It’s hard to measure RPM accurately and easy to get bogged down or slipping wasted RPMs. But the ride is dialed in and the steering is heavy (it’s still hydraulically assisted).

What doesn’t come is the Alpine A110’s immediate throughput and flighty grace, perhaps unsurprising when the Emira weighs 1440kg versus the French car’s 1105kg. I hear the argument that a Lotus should be the lightest car in any class it competes in, but I suspect Hethel would rather have a full order book than an under-contested weighbridge; and with the Emira out of print for two years, he seems to have it.