New Lotus Eagle Spotted Again
Golden days for Lotus, after a somewhat turbulent past the company has entered clear waters with stable management and has carved out its niche market with the Europa and Elise models. This year signifies Lotus' 60th anniversary (Colin Chapman build his first Lotus race car in 1948 although he founded Lotus Engineering in 1952) and Lotus plans to celebrate in style with a brand new car at the British International Motor Show.
Rumours that the new Lotus is bigger than the current Elise have been floating around for a while, and these spy photos from France seal the deal that the rumour is very true indeed.
Project Eagle will be powered by a mid-mounted Toyota 3.5 liter V6 petrol engine and will be rear wheel driven only. By using an out-sourced mass-produced engine Lotus has the advantage of being able to focus solely on matters like chassis, safety and weight-saving. Plus that an off-the-shelf engine is a guarantee to pass strict EU and US emissions regulations for relatively little money.
The Lotus Eagle should be priced around GBP 46,000 to GBP 48,000 and there will be five versions of the 2+2 tourer. For the first time on any Lotus, the Lotus Eagle will have paddle-shifters on select models. The Lotus Eagle will go into production late 2008 with sales expected to start early 2009.
whats the nonsense with 2+2 lately? in most cases, its not like you can fit another 2 people behind the 2 front passengers. I do think the engine will be mid mounted soo i dunno why they're calling it a 2+2 unless they have the engine at the back (or very unlikely at the front).
Why? There have been quite a few mid-mounted 2+2s. Maserati Merak, Ferrari Mondial are two that spring to mind (and both rubbish as it happens).
still difficult to tell exactly what it'll look like- hope it's more adventurous than the Europa
WOW!!! Lotus have done a great job at hiding the shape of this new model. But you can easily see that its definitely not that square. When your looking front on, you can see that the car curves in by looking at see through part along the fog lights.
Hmmm, that Toyota V6 rocks! We already know how well Lotus does chassis engineering. This should be a great driving product.
Given it is a 2+2 the likelihood of it being bigger than an Elise or Europe was greater than just rumour...