After 26 years and a total of 51,738 cars built, Lotus is sending off the Elise, Exige and Evora trio with the last examples which will join Lotus’ heritage collection. Meaning, these are not for sale. The trio posed alongside the Lotus team which included those who contributed to the design, engineering, assembly and sales as well.
The existing assembly lines which were installed in 2000, will be dismantled and replaced with new facilities for the all-new Emira. Production is expected to begin in spring 2022, following the completion of the final rounds of testing.
The last Elise is a Sport 240 Final Edition finished in Yellow and the last of 35,124 cars; the last Exige is a Cup 430 Final Edition in Heritage Racing Green—number 10,497, and the last Evora is a GT430 Sport finished in Dark Metallic Grey—the last of the production run of 6,117 cars.
First of all, I would like to thank the Lotus team who have worked on the Elise, Exige and Evora over the years and who are now transferring to Emira and Evija manufacturing. I would also like to convey enormous gratitude to all the customers of the Elise, Exige and Evora over the last 26 years for their passion, enthusiasm and support. These customers have given our ‘three Es’ true cult status—usually reserved for long-out-of-production classics. As we say farewell to the last few cars, we look forward to the Emira and Evija in the all-new factories at Hethel and sub-assembly facilities in Norwich, which introduce greater efficiencies and automation, higher quality and flexibility and the hugely exciting next chapter in our Vision80 strategy. – Matt Windle, Managing Director, Lotus Cars
These iconic cars have not only played a huge role in Lotus’ 73-year history but have also been ever-present in my daily life. Together with the Lotus design team, I have lived and breathed these cars for over 26 years. We will miss them, but a bit like Christmas, once it’s over, the excitement for the next one starts to build—and that’s what’s happening now at Lotus with the Evija, Emira and forthcoming Type 132. 2022 is going to be a great year as a new Lotus generation swings into action. – Russell Carr, Design Director, Lotus Cars
In addition to building the aforementioned 51,738 cars, Lotus also built 9,715 cars for third-party clients, including GM (Opel Speedster) and Tesla.
Recommended for you
Leave a Reply
Note: Comments that are unrelated to the post above get automatically filtered into the trash bin.
