Lotus officially puts an end to Elise, Exige and Evora production

By: Nikesh Kooverjee

The team at Lotus commemorates the last examples of the Elise, Exige and Evora as it embraces the new era of its product line. These monikers celebrate a total of 51 738 unit sales over the course of 26 years and represent almost half of the total production of Lotus in its 73-year history.

In addition, 9 715 sports cars were built for Lotus’ third-party clients, including GM and Tesla. From 1996 to 2000, the first-generation Elise and Exige sports cars were built in a small assembly hall at Hethel alongside the Lotus Esprit. The current assembly lines, which were installed in 2000, will be dismantled and replaced with all-new state-of-the-art facilities in support of the all-new Emira factory.

Full Emira production begins in the spring, after the prototype and test phases currently underway are completed, taking Lotus sports car production into a, high-tech and semi-automated era, and increasing capacity up to 5 000 units per year on a single shift pattern.

The last examples of the Elise, Exige and Evora models are reserved for Lotus’ growing heritage collection.

Joining the collection will be the last Elise, a Sport 240 Final Edition finished in Yellow and the last of 35,124 cars; the last Exige, a Cup 430 Final Edition in Heritage Racing Green – number 10 497; and the last Evora – a GT430 Sport finished in Dark Metallic Grey – the last of a production run of 6 117.

Next out of the stable is the Emira, the critically acclaimed new mid-engineered sports car from Lotus. Launched last July at Hethel and on a world tour ever since, it’s the last petrol-powered car from Lotus. Joining the first electric Lotus – the Evija hypercar and the most powerful production car in the world – will be the all-electric Type 132, Lotus’ first SUV, which will be revealed to the world in the spring.

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