A Lotus SUV Is Coming To Give The Porsche Macan A Kicking

Lotus has confirmed that it's working on an SUV to tackle the likes of the Porsche Macan, and it wants the car to be the best-handling in its class...

Matt Kimberley

20 Mar 2018

A Lotus SUV Is Coming To Give The Porsche Macan A Kicking

Lotus is planning an SUV to fight the Maserati Levante and Porsche Macan, and these designs have just been filed with patent authorities.

Billed from the off as the best-handling sports-SUV of the three, which would be some achievement, Lotus says it wants the car to go around bends “like nothing else in its segment.”

But just when you were thinking this might be a Lotus that’s actually all-new for once, we have to put a pin in that bubble. Geely-owned Lotus will take most of the new car’s key parts from stablemate Volvo.

Lotus CEO Jean-Marc Gales – who’s now back behind the wheel – confirmed that the Lotess-you-vee will be built from parts nicked from beneath the XC60 and XC90, which share the same modular structure.

Reading between the lines that means four cylinders only for the premium soft-roader, but at least the ‘twin-engine’ T8 plug-in hybrid drivetrain coughs up 401bhp. You can expect that to increase once Lotus’ engineers have whipped their tuning tools out.

The designs filed for patent applications look kinda Jaguar-ish from the front and surprisingly Ferrari-like from the back, although the bum-end styling clearly comes from the likes of the Exige and Evora.

Production is currently set to start in late 2021. Production of the £60,000-£70,000 car will be split across two locations with one said to be China and the other dependant on the outcome of Brexit negotiations.

Source: Autocar

Comments

But until then, we’ll get another Elise, and another, and another Evora, and then another Elise.

And another exige
And they bring back esprit and make 10 billion more different Esprits
And another elise
And a billion evoras
And 6 billion exiges

“Can I copy your homework?”
“Yea, just change it a bit”

I knew I saw that rear end before, but I couldn’t figure out where.

The front looks like the Jaguar F pace, the tight body of a Lamborghini Urus and the rear of a Ferrari

Or could it be

Another new sports SUV…, can’t really get excited about it even if it is a Lotus…

No. Just no. In my opinion a company like Lotus shouldn’t build an SUV, not to mention that 99% of SUV drivers won’t care about how well it handles

I think as enthusiasts we often forget that most actual buyers don’t care about such things. For example some say that certain cars on old barrowed chassis aren’t worth the msrp

The only Lotus SUV I’d accept is something akin to the Ariel Nomad.

Lotus’s are all about niche sports cars intended to be as involving for drivers as possible…and now they make an SUV.
It Won’t Sell
No one would want a Lotus SUV.
Only enthusiasts buy Lotuses, what makes them think a sports SUV, made by a niche company without much reputation for reliability, will ever appeal to the masses…

Exactly plus if the Lotus SUV has the best handling in its class, none of the buyers would care anyway since all the SUV will do go about driving in the city

The same could be said about Porsche before the early 2000s. They we’re going to go bankrupt, but luckily, with the Cayenne, they didn’t are still around. You don’t have to buy it, so ah, don’t.