To start off with, it probably has the best put together interior of any internal combustion engine Lotus. And infotainment that actually puts quite some European competitors to shame. Maybe not quite at the level of plushness of the new electric ones but definitely nothing to scoff at. The steering wheel switches also have a more conventional logic compared to the Alpine and the steering wheel, somewhat reminiscent of the Quartic steering wheels of Austin Allegro is quite nice and intuitive in your hands, in spite of the odd shape. 



You will recognize some switchgear as Volvo but then again as long as it works fine and looks decent, that’s no bad thing. The gear shifter is a bit gimmicky and the red cover of the start stop button might be an acquired taste but at least unlike the Alpine it offers two cup holders 😉

There are design touches (like the first edition plaque) that might have been seen as superfluous weight in the past but which improve the atmosphere somewhat. 

Not all is perfection, though. The seats, while looking nice and even featuring electric adjustment (far removed from the Alpine here) remain mounted too high even in the lowest setting (for my taste) and I personally found them less cosseting and comfortable than the Alpine items. My back wasn’t happy after two hours so not sure if intercontinental jaunts are reasonable for us middle aged citizens 🤷🏻‍♂️

There’s even small storage in the doors, although the unnecessarily large speakers make it smaller than would be possible. Given a similarly useless trunk in the back as in the Alpine (admittedly it doesn’t warm up so much) and cubic inch of storage helps. 

Otherwise the cabin is a pleasant place to spend time, even if I found the driver side footwell (on a LHD model) a tad narrow for long distance comfort. 

Ticking off the interior and practicality aspects, the one thing that is most prominent before you fire up the engine is the design. Compared to the lithe yet ultimately ’friendly’ and mildly retro look of the Alpine, the Emira is another animal altogether. I have heard it being compared to a modern reincarnation of the erstwhile Dino and in red I could certainly see the point. Definitely much more of a junior supercar look any competitors in the price range. 

While the look through the driver side rear view mirror in the Alpine fascinates with a perfectly executed series of sensual curves, here it’s perfectly judged aggression. I could get used to admiring the view from both. 

The Emira certainly also looks like a product of extensive wind tunnel work to optimize downforce. And I can imagine that on the highway the car should have little trouble to move slower traffic from the overtaking lane, should you approach with a speed differential. 

While looks are very much an ‘eye of the beholder’ topic, I would say that Lotus has done a very good job with the Emira. Maybe a bit busy but certainly more coherent and memorable than the last facelift of the Evora (I find  the original Evora nicely organically pretty).

So time to fire up the AMG four cylinder and see what the car does with it. In addition to the venerable supercharged 3,5 liter V6 from Toyota the Emira comes with the Mercedes M139 engine better known from the A45S AMG. In the A it’s one of the higher specific output four cylinders (210 hp / liter), for the Lotus it has been retuned somewhat to keep some distance to the top of the range V6.

And while the engine is one of the truly impressive aspects of the A45, here it simply doesn’t gel for me. You won’t be expecting neck hair raising melodiousness from a four cylinder but the noise here is more a pain than anything else. The four cylinder Caymans are maybe a tad worse still but you will definitely not be downshifting to hear the engine sing. 

The overall impression is of an engine strained, deprived of either air or fuel and not of a boisterous and keep to rev and play unit you get in the Alpine, whose engine has even more pedestrian roots but makes dramatically more of them. 

The acceleration is solid rather than bombastic but the power will suffice for a jaunt over country roads and overtaking is effortless. 

For me the largest chink in the car’s mechanical armor is the gearbox. It might come from the same A45 but here it is slow witted (even in the sportier modi) and downshifts come slowly and too late (it works well on full chat up shifting). It feels like a gearbox much older than it is. Again, just like with the engine noise and overall aggression, it’s very different from the same engine in the heavier A45 so there’s hope that a later shift mode or engine mapping update could resolve things. 

This might sound like a damning verdict and for me it really is the weakest area of the car. On the other hand the rest has many more positives. 

Starting with the autobahn, you will rapidly reach a nice marching speed of over 150 mph and overall the car remains fairly planted even at higher speeds. It doesn’t do Alpine’s ‘fly like a butterfly, sting like a bee’ impression and it doesn’t cling to the road like a limpet (BMW M or Mercedes AMG style). You need to work more in the Emira than in the latter and it has more inertia than the former but you can use it as a motorway tool without it being out of its comfort zone, even if that’s not the primary raison d’etre. 

On a windy country road (sadly no time for proper mountain pass testing) it’s certainly nicely judged and set up. Not as boisterous as the Alpine and certainly not as narrow, it has good mechanical grip for carving through a series of corners and the steering is both feel some and informative. While the Alpine eggs you on to go faster and faster with each repetition, the Lotus is perhaps a bit more aloof and would - at least in my hands need longer to extract that sweet spot. 

That’s perhaps less of a reflection of the car than of my driving skills (while I probably belong to the 90% of men convinced that their driving prowess is above average, I am realistic enough to know no race team will come calling 😉). On the other hand as an ownership proposition it has this old school charm of slowly extracting the maximum and of having to work much harder to get there, so again a matter of taste. 

One thing noticeable, also much more in line with powerful cars from the past is the very long throttle travel. The advantage being that you have a natural barrier to overwhelming the rear wheels by too sudden an application of power - a kind of pre-ESP natural Defence mechanism against the ham ankled 😊 It is something you probably get used to quickly but hopping into the Emira from something German you do notice it. 

To finish off the driving impressions, I found it also kore mid-engine twitchy than the Alpine. It will oversteer even without provocation. It’s not scary at reasonable speeds and the ESP is judged well enough to make you look competent and not to impede progress too visibly but again you need to be a better driver to be as comfortable with the Emira from the get go as in the Alpine. This might also be as a result of the tire / suspension combination and with the Cup 2 tires the grip levels in the dry would be higher but the handling in greasy circumstances spikier. 

So, the verdict? Getting back to the title, it appears to be the first Lotus where the ‘adding lightness’ mantra has been thrown out of the window. It’s 300kg heavier than the Alpine and you feel that it’s not as effervescent as a result (V6 is only 15 or so kg more and might be a better choice). At the same time I can imagine that it’s the first Lotus sports car that could be cross shopped with a Cayman, as it has a much more conventional appeal than an Exige or Elise, or even the Evora. This should help with increasing sales volumes, even if the long delivery delays some might have experienced do not (apparently the development time was underestimated somewhat).

The interior and controls do modernity just right - they are intuitive and clearly large scale production items and there’s nothing there that might deter a customer more used to a ‘conventional’ brand of sports car. The seats need more work as far as my back is concerned and the packaging is nowhere near as practical as in a Cayman or a 911. And your mileage might vary n terms of the dealer experience - here Porsche would certainly have a more consistent standard across the network. 

Engine wise I would personally stay away from the i4 until the current state of tune is not polished and go for the Toyota V6 instead - that way you’d probably avoid the car’s current weakest link. 

Overall it’s still a very competent and quite compelling junior sports car and I can well imagine that it would provide years of great fun. With a longer learning curve than in the Alpine but also a satisfaction once you get it just right. 

The car would also be a good alternative for someone who wants to color a bit outside the Cayman lines without demanding much of a compromise. And if they iron out the remaining niggles it might just be a worthy Dino successor. So a competent even if a historically novel Lotus.