Lotus is working day and night to expand its offerings by cutting the Lotus Elise and Lotus Exige from its current line-up and focusing on the replacements for a new Elan.
Elan is the future small British sports car moving into a bigger development plans, especially because the image of the automaker highly depends on the latest halo car which is a traditional Esprit mid-engined sports car.
The Esprit had already made its debut at the Paris Motor Show last year and since then the automaker has been offering little bit updates about this car in terms of the research and development. Eventually, at the recent press conference Dany Bahar, the CEO of Lotus had promised that the new Esprit would be capable of offering extra authentic driving experience as compared to what the Ferrari 458 Italia and McLaren MP4-12C is providing.
This new Esprit is set to launch in the year 2013 along with its five siblings including Elise/Exige and Elan replacements. Basically, the Esprit will get the character as well as emotion which the McLaren actually lacks. Besides, the rolling chassis are ready with running prototypes and will go for testing by the month of November. Additional features include the all new V8 engine from Lotus that will produce 570 hp, becoming 80 kg lighter in weight, and 40 percent smaller as compared to the Toyota-sourced V8 which was originally selected for this model.
Formula 1 KERS-style technology will also be added. Rumors also say that works are going on for the next generation Exige and the new 2-Eleven that will probably use the new lightweight modular platform from Lotus which are completely aluminum-made.
