Review: Lotus 2012 Evora S

A friend of mine once owned a Lotus Exige S. The track-ready machine was a variant of the already nimble Elise, but with a fixed roof and a big ol' supercharger bolted onto its mid-mounted, 4-cylinder engine.

The weekend he took delivery of the car – coated in British racing green, of course – the two of us blasted out of town for some break-in miles. At one point, I asked how fast we were going. His reply: "I don't know, the speedometer doesn't seem to be working."

Lotus is a quirky little company, always has been. As any enthusiast will eagerly tell you, its bantamweight track rats score off the charts in the areas of handling, acceleration, aerodynamics and lightweight construction. But the cheeky British sports cars have never quite "made it" when it comes to fit and finish. Lotuses lack the interior refinement displayed by higher-volume manufacturers like Porsche.

The Evora S, although markedly more civilized than the Elise or Exige, is not much different. Sure, there's soft, Paprika-colored leather covering nearly every visible surface. And there are luxurious amenities one would never expect to find inside of a Lotus: heated seats, a machined-aluminum instrument panel and GPS. But you're still riding mere inches off the ground in what's essentially a street-legal race car – just ask my fiancée, who needed a few hours to recover from her nausea after we reached our destination. That sort of raw-edged driving dynamic might appeal to 30-year-old, car-obsessed adolescents like me, but will it hold the same appeal for a wealthy 50-year-old dude looking to add a little spice to his daily driving experience? Likely not. It's also worth mentioning the same 50-year-old dude would need to be a contortionist to finagle himself inside the tight cockpit.

Like my buddy's racy Exige S, the Evora S adds a supercharger and plenty of track-ready hardware to its tamer, naturally aspirated Evora sibling. Also like its Exige/Elise brethren, a Toyota-sourced engine sits amidships for superior weight distribution and handling. As is now customary with sports cars from Maranello and Germany, the engine sits beneath a layer of heat-resistant glass for you to admire and gaze upon every time you approach from behind.

The Evora employs a more powerful 3.5L V6, though, with the Harrop HTV 1320 supercharger boosting horsepower to 345 (a 69hp gain over the base Evora) and raising the torque to 295 pound-feet (a gain of 37 pound-feet). Those numbers are good enough to run you to 60 mph in a mere 4.3 seconds, six-tenths of a second faster than in the base Evora. To keep all that power in check, Lotus upgraded the six-speed gearbox with a heavier-duty clutch. On the suspension side of things, the front receives stiffer bushings and new upper wishbones for better castor angles, while the rear gets revised geometry, stiffer bushings, and a thicker antiroll bar.

All in, S is 122 pounds heavier than the regular Evora, with a curb weight of 3,168 pounds. That means every extra pony is tasked with moving approximately 9 pounds, about equal with the difference seen in Porsches in its less powerful but lighter Cayman S.

Performance more than lives up to the Evora S's provocative, hunkered-down stance. The car is violently fast in pretty much any driving situation. Fast down a straight, fast off the line, fast in a corner. And let's not forget coming to a stop – 60 to zero in 100 feet.

It's amazing how a gaggle of metal and aluminum can infuse such delight into an already impressive sports car, but that's exactly what engineers have done by slapping on that blower. There is power positively everywhere and the acceleration is more addictive than many of today's hard drugs.

My favorite aspect of the powertrain is an exhaust bypass valve that opens up like the heavens when you press the "Sport Mode" button to the right of the steering wheel. Along with the positively intoxicating sound piping into the cockpit, Sport Mode also sharpens the throttle response and raises redline to a whopping 7,200 rpm. The throttle can be a little sensitive around town, and the stick is a bit cumbersome at slow speeds (an automated transmission was recently made available as a $2,500 option), but all that goes out the window once you start burying the needle to redline in second, third, fourth, and beyond.

As you can imagine, the Evora S feels most at home on twisty back country roads and sweeping mountain passes. During my weekend of driving in and around the Berkshire Mountains in Massachusetts, I attempted to nudge the limits of grip and tracking while negotiating twists and turns.

Notice I used the word "attempted." 40 mph, that was easy. 50 mph, barely breaking a sweat. 60 mph, is this me or the car? 70 mph, OK I'm not nearly talented enough to be doing this.

No matter how hard I pushed, nothing could make the Evora S's Pirelli P-Zero Corsa tires (rated at an astonishing 1.5 Gs of lateral grip) veer off course. In fact, the only thing out of alignment was my fiancé's heart rate. The hydraulically assisted power steering is magnificent, eliciting serious levels of driver feedback to the point where you feel every road undulation the tires come into contact with. Ride quality was pretty forgiving, with only larger potholes and road imperfections managing to jolt to ultra-stiff Evora chassis to any noticeable degree. When not in Sport Mode, the noise, vibration and harshness levels were surprisingly low at highway speed, as well.

It's a shame such impressive road dynamics are hampered by something as silly as cooling fans. Yes, cooling fans. They come on every single time you bring the vehicle to a slow or stop, and they are really loud. I even got a comment from a passer-by who liked the car, but asked me if it was supposed to be making those noises. If I were an owner, the fans would get annoying real quick.

While the Evora S is slightly easier to get in and out of than smaller Elise and Exige counterparts, it still requires a fair bit of practice to get the act down. And rear visibility? There isn't any, and while the rearview camera will assist you during parking, it won't help as you dart nimbly in and out of lanes, so you'll have to rely almost exclusively on the side-view mirrors while driving.

The interior, a mash up of aluminum trim and soft-touch leather, is pleasing to the eye. The dash got a little too much sun the afternoon before arriving at my door and took on a warped, shrink-wrapped look as a result. Lotus says it's changing leather suppliers to prevent this from happening again, but one would think that sort of thing would be field tested before going on sale for close to $90k. Porsche wouldn't make a mistake like that.

Being a niche auto company is tough these days. Lotus, a brand with tremendous racing pedigree and engineering know-how, is one of the few companies that can truly say it stands for one thing and one thing alone: performance. Come to think of it, doing that one thing really well, even at the expense of other things, is easily the brand's most endearing quality.

In an effort to strech beyond that niche, Lotus officials are drafting an ambitious and perhaps overly aggressive product development plan to diversify the lineup and, in the process, balloon company sales between now and 2014. They even brought in a hotshot executive from Ferrari and are dusting off iconic nameplates like Esprit, Elan and Elite to help them do it.

With corporate ambition like that, Lotus can no longer skate by on good looks and razor sharp handling alone. If it truly wants to compete with the likes of Porsche, vehicle refinement and passenger comfort will need to become more of a priority during development. In the process, I hope the company does not compromise the one great thing it has going for it.

WIRED Highly addictive levels of punch. Point-and-shoot handling. Intoxicating exhaust note in Sport mode. Exotic looks inside and out. Awesome buckets pack you in tight.

TIRED Blind spots everywhere. Obnoxious cooling fan activates every time you come to a stop. Aftermarket Alpine GPS unit feels out of place in what's supposed to be an exclusive sports car.

Photos by Chris Bradley for Wired

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