Monday, September 20, 2010

LOTUS PUTS OUT 450KW ELITE BEFORE PARIS DEBUT

    Paris 2010 is still a week ahead, yet some automakers have already shown their aces before the glamorous motor show. One such is Lotus, which is now owned by Proton of Malaysia, has revealed the Elite, a new breed of supercar from the English brand. Hopefully the name doesn’t get confused with little brother Elise.


    “There's no denying that the Elite is breathtakingly beautiful to look at but it's so much more than that,” Dany Bahar, CEO of Group Lotus says in a press statement.  “It's a car that over delivers in all other aspects as well. One could say it's a car of perfect contradictions, it's compact yet spacious, high performing yet low emitting, lightweight yet still reassuringly solid. It's a car that we are exceptionally proud of at Lotus and we truly believe that there is nothing else like it out there both in terms of styling and performance.”
    The two-door Elite accommodates four passengers through its 2+2 seating arrangement, something not seen in Lotus cars yet.

    Power will come from a mid-ship 5.0-litre V8 engine making about 456kW and 720Nm of torque. It is all sent to the rear wheels through a hybrid transmission (hybrid technologies are optional on the Elite) in order to post a 0 – 100km/h time of between 3.5 to 3.7 seconds. This will be one quick GT. Top speed should be about 315km/h while C02 emissions are expected to reach 215g/km for the production car when it goes on sale in 2014. Expected pricing is around £115 000 (R1.28 million) in today’s money.

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