Lotus Still Hasn't Revealed A New Car So We'll Have To Make Do With This Bond-Inspired Evora Sport 410

Oh look, it’s yet another Lotus special edition. This is a one-off build of the Evora Sport 410, designed to pay homage to the Esprit S1, which was launched exactly 42 years ago this October. Right.

Not to be put off, Lotus has reminded us that the Esprit S1’s appearance in James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me came 40 years ago this year. Its staggeringly good looks above and below the water line in the Hollywood classic gave Lotus a huge boost at the time.

The Lotus Exclusive department, which handles customers’ wishes for bespoke designs and any other unique fettling they want, has drawn up this special Evora Sport 410 in flat white with a black waistline stripe from the edge of the front grille to the rear corners, just like the originals from the film, a working submersible version of which Elon Musk apparently bought in 2013.

Performance is pretty mighty. It ticks the 0-62mph sprint off in 3.9 seconds, records 1280kg on the scales and will crack 186mph on a long straight. The unchanged supercharged 3.5-litre V6 has 404bhp at 7000rpm, 310lb ft at 3500rpm and an epic soundtrack.

Jean-Marc Gales, Lotus CEO, had this rather gushing statement to make about the project’s significance.

“So many of us recall the impact of the Lotus Esprit when it hit the big screen in The Spy Who Loved Me, and we wanted to honour that with a special Evora Sport 410. It’s the perfect tribute to such an influential Lotus, but a world away in terms of its abilities and performance.

“Supremely fast and agile, rivals’ cars look overweight and underpowered in comparison. Lotus was founded on the principle of lightweight engineering and, even today, nobody does it better.”

Good work on the cheesy Bond reference, chap. On the inside there’s red tartan trim, red contrast stitching in the Alcantara-covered dashboard and lightweight carbonfibre trim everywhere. The standard 410’s 64kg of downforce (at high speed) stays the same.

We love Lotus cars. We also live in hope that one day there might be a new one. For now, though, this will have to do…