While rival Alfa Romeo invested in developing a light carbon fiber tub for the 4C, Lotus will stick to aluminum components in the foreseeable future. A carbon fiber tub has been ruled out because it’s markedly more expensive to design, and because it’s more difficult to modify than an aluminum architecture. Gales’ comments suggest the next Elise/Exige are being designed with a long life cycle in mind.
Forty percent of the cars that Lotus sells outside of Europe are equipped with an automatic transmission, a statistic that continues to raise eyebrows at the company’s headquarters in Hethel, England. Gales told Top Gear that the Toyota-sourced unit is too refined, so the gearbox offered on the next-gen cars will be tuned to provide a more sport-focused feel both on and off the track.
The good news is that the Elise and the Exige will be designed with the United States market in mind. The bad news is that the two cars aren’t scheduled to debut for at least another four years, meaning they won’t land on our shores until the 2020 model year at the earliest. Until then, Lotus will continue to introduce limited-edition off-shoots of both cars like the recently-unveiled Exige Sport 350 (pictured).
Finally, Lotus will launch a Roadster version of the thoroughly revised Evora 400 halfway through next year in a bid to gain a bigger slice of the U.S. market. Set to bow at a major auto show in the next few months, the Evora 400 Roadster will be equipped with two removable roof panels that will each weigh approximately six and a half pounds. The Roadster will carry a small premium over its fixed-roof counterpart, which starts at $89,900.
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