The Redline

Tag: news

  • Lotus 2020: Two New Cars

    The Lotus 2020 plan is out. Again.

    The message from Jean-Marc Gales, Lotus CEO: Two new cars by 2020. And guess what? There’ll be an SUV as well. Some months after Chinese car company and Volvo owner Geely bought Lotus from Proton, Lotus’ future plans are out in the open.

    Well, a bit.

    Lotus 2020: Two New Cars

    Lotus Esprit
    It won’t be a new Esprit.

    Lotus made its name with sports cars, so by 2020 we’ll have two new cars.

    The first will replace either the Evora or Exige. The Evora runs on the newest of Lotus’ platforms while the Exige rides on the Elise’s now 22 year old tried and tested hydroformed aluminium tub.

    It seems weird that the Evora would be the first to be replaced (it’s only been around since 2009) but Gales is a smart fellow who seems to know what he’s doing. He had previously said that the Elise replacement would arrive in 2020, but that was before Geely turned up.

    Gales told CAR Magazine that the new car won’t feature a hybrid powertrain, with Gales citing the weight of two engines.

    Reading between the lines, it’s possible the Elise could get the chop. Gales said that there’s not much money in sports cars – they cost a lot to develop and you can’t sell too many of them. Either way, the Elise’s super-clever, iconic aluminium platform will live on doing what it does best – reasonably cheap to build, super-strong, super-light, easy to work with.

    The second new car is the car I reckon Lotus should be doing – a carbon-tubbed track monster. That car can’t replace the Elise unless a financial miracle occurs (or Lotus works out how Alfa Romeo do it so cheaply in the 4C).

    SUV

    This is the car nobody really wants Lotus to make, but it has to. An SUV is the way to the market’s heart and a Lotus SUV should be something very interesting indeed. Gales promised that all future cars will stay true to the Lotus DNA of lightness. He wouldn’t be drawn on engines but did drop a heavy hint about an electric drivetrain being in the mix.

    A Lotus SUV will be interesting, if nothing else. The less information I have makes me further intrigued…

    Geely, Volvo and Lotus

    Lotus 2020: A New Exige?

    There is finally new money flowing through Lotus, which also managed a profit in the last financial year. The production line has scored a cash injection and Lotus engineers have been on a parts-bin raid to update electrical and safety systems. We might finally see decent stereos, a sat nav and hopefully some new switchgear.

    We won’t be seeing the big Volvo touchscreen (from experience, it’s way too big to fit in a Lotus) and it’s highly unlikely the SUV will be a rebadged XC-something. That’s good news, even though both of those things are excellent in their own right. They’re just not right for Lotus.

    While the news isn’t that of a new sports car onslaught – and I’m a bit worried that the Elise may not live on – it’s great to see Geely money is flowing. In my head, Lotus could be almost a McLaren sub-brand, a harder-core drive-to-the-track sports cars that are more user-friendly than, say, an Ariel Atom.

    For the full story without my bleatings, check out CAR’s story (which missed the bits about the previous plans).

  • Porsche Cayman and Boxster GTS

    Oh-ho, now we’re talking. The fine folk at Dr Ing hc F Porsche (we’re very formal here at The Redline) have just dropped two new models.

    The Cayman and Boxster have had the GTS treatment, making them even faster. How good is a weekend press release catchup?

    Porsche Cayman and Boxster GTS

    Boxster GTS
    Boxster GTS

    [GARD]

    While the company is battling some slightly poor press regarding the self-immolating 911 GT3 engines, engineering has somehow found the time to make go-faster Cayman and Boxster twins.

    This isn’t a strap-in-a-big-one and let ’em go sort of development. It’s subtle, yet effective, in true Porsche style.

    The GTS pair is powered by a tweaked 3.4 litre flat six from the S editions. The GTS gets an extra 11kW, taking power to 243kW for the Boxster and 250kW for the Cayman coupe.

    Porsches says the extra power comes from “optimised fine tuning” or what we would commonly say, “They chipped it.”

    When fitted with a PDK double-clutch transmission, the Boxster will hit 100km/h in 4.7 seconds while the Cayman will get there a tenth faster. Again, the Boxster has a slightly slower top speed of 280 versus the Cayman’s 285.

    Torque is also up 10Nm in both engines and Porsche reckons you’ll get 8.2l/100km on the Euro combined cycle, 9.0l/100km with the manual. Good luck with that, because these things are a hoot to drive.

    The GTSes also pick up Porsche’s PASM  and Chrono packages, which allow you to switch between driving modes, changing the damper rates and various things like throttle response.

    The cars roll on 235/35s at the front and 265/35s at the rear, wrapped around 20-inch Carrera S wheels. Front and rear suspension has been tweaked, too, for a bit of extra grip.

    Boxster GTS - Interior
    Boxster GTS interior

    The interior comes standard with leather and Alcantara, that grippy stuff that stops you sliding off your seat.

    It’s not just the dynamics that get a tweak either – the headlights are blackened and come standard with dynamic lighting.

    Porsche Boxster GTS: $146,000  + ORC for 7 speed manual
    Cayman GTS: $161,400 + ORC for 7-speed manual
    On sale in Australia: May

    Meanwhile…

    [GARD]

    Four Cylinder Porsche Engine Coming

    Yep, and it’ll be a flat four, too, Porsche CEO Matthias Muller told Germany’s Auto Motor Und Sport.

    The last four banger in the Porsche line-up was the 968, a car for which I have a secret crush in bonkers ClubSport form. That car had a 3.0 litre (!) inline four and went out of production almost twenty years ago.

    The new four cylinder will not only be a boxer, but it’ll have a turbo – so it’ll be just like Mark Webber’s 919 WEC hybrid. Well, a bit like.

    “We will continue with the downsizing strategy and develop a new four-cylinder boxer engine, which will see service in the next-generation Boxster and Cayman. We will not separate ourselves from efforts to reduce CO2.”

    He says the engines could develop up to 295kW, rather more than the flat six in the current GTS pairing. With a lighter kerb weight, that should make them go even quicker and harder.

    The link with the inevitably brilliant WEC program won’t go astray, either.

  • The V10 Lamborghini Huracán Is Here

    The venerable Gallardo is dead – long live the Huracan.

    Lamborghini is finding it impossible to keep the new baby Huracán under wraps and so here are the images in all their glory.

    What we know about Huracán

    The internet is deducing from the LP610-4 that the car is powered by a V10 (we are big, big V10 fans here) good for 602bhp or 440kW. The noise from its quad-pipes is bound to be marvellous if Auto Bild’s video of a Huracán firing up is anything to go by.

    The internet also knows that it has a seven-speed dual clutch box, so say goodbye to manual Lambos, we reckon.

    The Gallardo

    The Gallardo has been with us now for just on a decade and was the first fruits of the initially-inexplicable purchase of the company by Audi.

    It is also the car that carried Lamborghini through the Global Financial Crisis, totting up over 14000 sales in its decade on the books.

    It came as a coupe and Spyder drop top and was even used by a  number of police departments, most notably the Italians (who crashed them with seeming monotonous regularity), the English and various Middle Eastern jurisdictions.

    There were a few special ones, too – the SE, with its black roof and Callisto rims; the Nera, a gauche, over-personalised model for those without taste; and the daddy of them all, the Superleggera (superlight).

    The final years saw a tidal wave of special editions, none madder than the LP-570-4 Squadra Corse, the answer to the upcoming Ferrari 458 Speciale.

    The Gallardo was a game-changer for the brand, and rightly so. Hardly any of them caught fire, you could drive them in any weather condition but the company still maintained its image of being totally mental.

    The last Gallardo down the line was a LP-570-4 Spyder Performante, in Mars Rosso red, no less.

    Enough talk. Have a look at this bad boy. And enjoy.

    [Photo Source: La Stampa]