TLF were lucky enough to spend 2 weeks with the Evora GT410 Sport to get a better feel for the car in more depth than a visit to the Lotus Factory in Hethel for a brief road/track test, to really see what the car is like in a variety of situations over a longer period.

The first thing you’ll notice are the visually striking redesigned front and rear bumpers from the GT430 range. The GT410 Sport also benefits from almost as much exposed carbon fibre as its more expensive stable mates. From front to back of the car; the front bumper air blade are cf as is the front access hatch, the roof, the tailgate and then the aero inserts to the rear bumper. This carbon is done very well, the herringbone weave join in the middle of the front access hatch, the roof and tailgate pleases the OCD among us and forms a perfectly centred line along the length of the car. The only difference here to the more expensive cars is that they have front and rear bumpers made entirely from carbon fibre, whereas the GT410 Sport bumper are themselves rubberised GRP as per the Evora 400 and other Evoras before that.

Those bumpers do make a huge visual difference, elevating the car into a much more exotic looking machine. It’s definitely one of those cars that deserves a glance over your shoulder when you park it up and walk away. They also have a real aerodynamic benefit too with the front air blades forcing air out of a vertical vent inside the edge of the front bumper. This creates a curtain of fast, smooth low pressure air past the front wheel that acts as a venturi pulling air from the wheel arch creating downforce. The rear ducts work differently, offering the air in the rear arches an easier exit, therefore reducing pressure and creating downforce. This, combined with the large rear lip to the tailgate add up to a total of 96kgs of downforce at the cars top speed of 190mph. While you’ll need to be on the autobahn to experience this, it did feel significantly more planted during high speed corners in our hands. While a significant amount of this lateral grip can be attributed to the very sticky Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres at the speeds you see on UK roads, the downforce is definitely working for you too. Mid-corner adjustments also felt a lot more stable than my own 2010 Evora which does tend to playfully move a little on the OE Pirelli P-Zeroes when pushed, the GT410 just stuck firm through the corner and if you needed to change your line, it’s a lot less fazed that you are.

The incredibly fast sub-4 second 0-60 makes you need to readjust your thinking to driving the GT410 Sport. While this isn’t something you’ll be doing often in the car, it translates into better acceleration through the rev and speed range. The acceleration is much more linear than the previous Sport 410, the torque curve feels like more of a torque ‘flat line’ as once it’s peaked early on the torque stays there. This, along with all the other improvements to the grip gives much more confidence in how the car reacts to your inputs, either acceleration or steering. It really is barmy fast, like, licence losing (sorry JMG!) fast. I didn’t have the chance to take it on track but I can only imagine how it’s upped its game in this respect as its road going demeanour is my car turned up to 11, no, make that 12. What I’d also like to imagine is what the GT430 (and Sport) are like to drive compared to the GT410. This is a proper car, a proper weapon, so take more weight out, add more power and you really are at the pinnacle of what the Evora range represents.

Something which stood out throughout my test was that while I’m used to getting a decent amount of attention driving around in an Evora, this one really had people getting their phones out for pictures. I had a number of friends want to go out for a quick drive in the GT410 Sport, even non-car friends who noticed how much more extreme it looked to what’s usually parked up at mine. You see people take a second glance and it does hold their gaze for some time! It’s actually 4cm shorter than a standard Evora and this gives the appearance of a wider, more aggressive looking car. It’s still <1.8m wide, the same as the Evora (bar the GTE) has always been. To finish this particular GT410 off, it was fitted with ultralight forged 19″ and 20″ wheels with yellow AP Racing 4 pot calipers all round riding on the huge 370mm 2-piece front discs and 350mm 2-piece rear discs.

The yellow accents to the calipers are carried over the the interior, with the HVAC controls surround, door pulls and stitching in matching colour. Nice touch, it worked really well on the car and lifted the interior, which is otherwise almost entirely Alcantara covered. This is great on the steering wheel, and I do love an Alcantara steering wheel, it feels very ‘race car’. This car was a 2+0 and fitted with the more GT styled Sparco seats (a £3,500 option) rather than the carbon fibre sports seats. Being Alcantara with leather panels, they are very grippy which is handy in a car which corners so well and even on a 450 mile round trip from Kent to Cheshire for the Oakmere Lotus open day, they were a great place to be, no complaints here.

That was a long drive, mainly motorway (where 31mpg was shown on the dash display, not bad for a 410 hp supercharged V6!) and while the GT410 feels more stiffly sprung in comparison to earlier cars, it’s still a very decent GT car. Mid-range acceleration is effortless, the torque feels strong from 2,000rpm upwards so miles can be munched with ease. Where the car was more fun was when we were diverted into the depths of the Peak District on this trip. With the car in ‘Race’ mode, the valve on the Titanium exhaust (£5,500 option) stays open and boy does it sound good, very good! Heading along the A & B roads of the Peaks, through the undulations and sharp bends you start to get a feel of how much grip the car has when you lean on it. With acceleration on demand, brakes that you will never trouble in road (or indeed track) driving, the car takes on it’s ‘duality’ and moves from a GT into a more race-bred experience. The steering, which I’d say really is the strongest point of the Evora (and indeed Lotus) is fantastic. EPAS indeed! I’m talking to you EVO magazine! Light enough to allow fairly vigorous and quick inputs, the tactility of the steering feel means you know exactly how much grip the car has instantaneously and how much effort it’s putting into getting you round that corner. Turn in is tack sharp, I didn’t experience a jot of understeer once. It’s been a while since I’ve had to relearn how fast you can actually go into a corner and make it around, the GT410 needs you to up your game to keep up with it. The Cup 2 is an amazing tyre, I didn’t trouble them at all during my time with the car, in fact one of the things that I noticed was that they do pick up stones into the arches, that same noise when you’ve come off a track day session and you’ve put a lot of heat into the rubber. Again, race car. Nice.

It’s been a fun couple of weeks with the GT410 Sport. Would I buy one? Yes. It’s got the benefits of the Evora that I like as a drivers car plus that ‘duality’ I mentioned of a usable GT with it’s other, naughtier side once you’re having some fun. While my car has this too, the performance and very much the looks make this a very serious upgrade to the Evora. Quality is spot on. The finish of the paint is flawless, the carbon work is sublime, honestly true supercar quality. The interior is excellent with no rattles or squeaks, the gear change is the best of any Evora I’ve driven and with the increases in power and improvements to what was already class leading, if not world leading steering and suspension add up to an impressive package. Go find a dealer and drive one then I’ll challenge you not to want to take it home if it’s a real drivers car you’re after!

Our time with the Lotus Evora 400 was more limited that we’re used to with the long-termer’s but that’s not to say we had enough time to discover more about the car, and how it was to get under it’s skin…

Following on from our previous Long Term Test Evora’s, TLF have been asked to spend some time with the Evora 400. Let’s not pull any punches, a 70% new car with improvements across the board the 400 is a large-scale evolution of the previous Evora, a car that itself took home a good number of ‘Car of the Year’ awards when it was launched back in 2009. First impressions are that it’s clearly the best car we’ve ever driven dynamically in every respect. On our first test of the car after 30 minutes on the test track at Hethel we’d shaved 15 seconds off per lap, a clue as to how much confidence this car gives you to push, push, push and explore its limits and your own. That said, it’s not the ‘track car’ of the Lotus range, a gap clearly filled with the Elise/Exige so we’ll be concentrating on what the car is like to live with on a daily basis.

This Evora 400 is well optioned. With a £72,000 base price for the 2+2 (95% of Evoras sold are 2+2’s), we have the black pack which gives you a black roof, sills, mirrors and a dark headlining (£1,500), the Alcantara pack (£2,500), Metallic orange paint (£900), Cruise Control (£300), black brake calipers (£300) and gloss black forged wheels (19″ & 20″) which are an extra £2,000 over the standard cast alloys. Total cost as tested, £79,500.

Just to give you a flavour of what the Evora 400 represents:

• Fastest production Lotus ever.
• Lotus Evora 400 to lap the test track at Hethel, Norfolk in 1 minute 31 seconds, seven seconds faster than the previous model.
• 42 kg lighter than previous car despite additional chargecooler.
• Flat torque curve and torque increased to 302 lbs ft (410 Nm) achieved between 3,500 to 6,500 rpm.
• First time that a Limited Slip Differential (LSD) has been used on a Lotus series production car as standard (Torsen type (LSD) which gives a more involving drive and better traction, to produce better lap times),
• Powered by a 3.5-litre V6 engine with a new supercharger, water-to-air charge-cooler.
• New engine mounts are 5.6 kg lighter than in the previous Lotus Evora.
• A number of manual gearbox enhancements have greatly improved shift quality including a new clutch disc and a low inertia flywheel that ensure swift and tactile gearchanges.
• New more powerful, two-piece, cross-drilled and ventilated brake discs, which are 370 x 32 mm front and 350 x 32 mm rear diameters (previous Evora: 350 x 32 mm front and 332 x 26 mm rear).
• The lightweight forged aluminium wheels are 3.3 kg lighter than the forged wheels on the previous Evora.
• At 150 mph the downforce is 32 kg (12 kg on the front and 20 kg on the rear) for the Evora 400. The previous Evora S generated 6 kg front and 10 kg on the rear.
• The sills are 43 mm per side narrower and 56mm lower than the previous Evora without degradation of either torsional stiffness, which remains at a rigid 27,000 Nm / degree
• All new front seats are lighter (by 3 kg each) and provide greater support for both driver and front passenger. These seats also incorporate side airbags which is a requirement of the USA’s NHSTA to allow the car to return to the Federal market. North American markets will receive the Evora 400 as a 2017 model year presentation in the Spring of 2016.

No, it’s not easy to forget the car, but on a recent long drive it struck me how easy it is to forget many of the aspects of this car which make it what it is. It’s easy to forget that you’re driving a car which won 5 ‘Car of the Year’ awards when it was launched in 2009. It’s easy to forget while cruising along the motorway (with cruise control on) you’re driving a car which will accelerate from 0-60 in 4.4 seconds and decelerate from 60-0 even quicker than that, in fact twice as quick! It’s also easy to forget putting your foot down at 50mph in 3rd gear will see you at over 100mph before needing to change gear again (on the autobahn only, naturally) and that you’re driving a car so stiff that you can hang a whole Evora from an Evora and see less than 1 degree flex in the chassis. It’s a multi-faceted car, and that’s the bit that catches you out on the long runs, that it’s an aggressive monster of a high-end sports car as well as comfortable daily driver all year around with annual ownership costs lower than many of the run-of-the-mill saloons. So a message to Evora owners, especially those who use the car every day and perhaps take its performance and dynamics for granted; take the long way home, give it some beans, remember what the Evora is all about – it’s too easy to take it for granted!

In the last month we’ve driven over 1,500 miles in the Evora and to be fair, it’s been faultless. I know I’m a long term Lotus fan and this is a Lotus based website, but it’s hard to find niggles in the car when it does what it says on the tin so well. A recent trip to the New Forest for these pictures saw the car loaded up with 2 adults complete with 2 full sets of photographic gear including tripods, camera bags etc, wet weather gear (doesn’t it always rain when you want sunshine!) and several brollies. While the boot struggles to fit all of this, there’s plenty of room in the back of the passenger cabin for overspill and some of the softer items are welcomed behind the driver and passenger seats. From Kent to Berkshire to the New Forest and back we used around 3/4 of a tank of fuel (250 miles) which equates to 27mpg according to the dash display, certainly liveable for the performance on tap.

Another surprise which shouldn’t have been was on the drive home in rain so hard the single wiper was on overtime trying to keep up and quite unlike the S1 Elise I own, the Evora laps up such weather. Not only have we not seen a hint of aquaplaning as the very light Elise suffers from the car does inspire a lot of confidence on these kind of days. Pushing on it takes some real provocation and if it’s the tyres, the DPM system or just the dynamics of the car, there wasn’t a moment when you’re not completely confident the car will be stable, compliant and easy to drive hard. With more of this weather on the way, it ticks the ‘all year round’ box that some older Lotus cars struggle with, seeing owners elect to SORN their vehicles over the wetter and colder months. Even still on the normal Pirelli P-Zero Corsa tyres and not winter tyres it’s just fine, although that may change as temperatures drop and it dictates a change to winter tyres. On a previous long term test Evora we even kept driving in the most hellish of winter thanks to the Yokohama W-Drive tyres and were so inspired by the usability that personally I now fit these to our normal cars, they’re not just for snow days you know!

After a few months back in an Evora it’s soon to be heading back to Hethel, but it’s managed to rekindle my affair with the car. With used Lotus prices holding their own very well, I can’t help but think it’s time to jump into personal ownership. A Launch Edition Evora from 2009 was close to £60k new and for the last 2, even 3 years these have now held steady at over £30k, very few have dropped below this level. For an extra £10k (which equates well to the new price) you can see yourself into a Supercharged Evora and for another £5k on that sees you into the much improved MY12 onwards cars. There’s no such thing as a safe investment but the prices just aren’t dropping so owning an Evora for a year or two will make a lot of economic sense, you’d lose more money buying a new Ford Fiesta in the same time! While a brand new car will depreciate, that’s currently partly negated for current Lotus owners as most UK dealers are offering £6k off a new car until the end of January 2015 if you either p-ex your current Lotus, or even just offer a proof of ownership. Coupled with the 0% finance deals you can get from the dealer and 3 years free servicing and warranty, that annual cost of ownership does make the car look like a lot of sense.

Evora Facts:

• It takes 26,600nm of torque to flex the chassis 1 degree. That’s 50% stiffer than a Ferrari F430.
• The name is a combination of Evolution, Vogue and Aura. It’s not named after the town in Portugal! Exira was considered and the cars development name was Eagle.
• The wishbones are forged aluminium and feature the Lotus roundel. These are stronger and lighter than cast wishbones.
• There are optical illusions on the doors. The curves from the wing mirror back to the intake grill at the top and the crease along the bottom of the door plus sill add a ‘feminine’ curve effect to what is otherwise an almost completely flat door. This also disguises the length of the wheelbase.
• There’s a gap between the panel which holds the reversing sensors and the rear diffuser on the Evora S. This facilities fresh air circulation to keep the boot cool.
• There’s a ‘chimney’ from the forward manifold on the engine to draft hot air out of one of the tailgate vents directly.
• There are 3 NACA ducts under the otherwise flat underside of the car to draw cooling air into the engine bay without affecting the air flow under the car.
• As per Lotus tradition, all body panels are composite and in a break from un-stressed body panels in the Elise/Exige, the Evora features stressed panels to improve rigidity – the body panels now form part of the structure of the car.
• The steering wheel rim is made from lightweight magnesium alloy, this allows for better feedback due to lower rotational inertia.
• The world’s only mid-engined 2+2.

With thanks to the amazing Andrzej of nineteen80one.com for the fantastic images! Click any image to view the gallery.

The Sports Racer is the evolution of the Evora offering a fully specced car with all options ticked at a ‘package price’. Our test car is presented in Daytona Blue which is a real eye catcher and indeed attention grabbing colour with black detailing on the roof and under door sills, front splitter and rear diffuser to mark it out from the normal Evora. It is also fitted with gloss black 19″ and 20″ wheels with red calipers which finish off the car nicely and black ‘Lotus’ and ‘Evora S’ badges on its rear end. Sports Racer’s come in this colour and also 6 other colours including the new offerings of Solar Yellow and Pewter Grey. 

The last Evora we drove in our 12 month ‘Long Term Test‘ was an MY12 S IPS with all options and many of the updates as noted in this article from the time.  I think the main differences that have been made to the car since then are really focussed on quality. Quality of materials, quality of assembly and quality of finish. The car now feels, well, just well put together as you’d expect from a car at this price point. A recent trip out with a 991 GT3 owner cemented this with his comments being that he was amazed how Lotus had upped their game with the car and that he was surprised at how nice it was, for a Lotus. Those age old Lotus acronyms really are a thing of the past now, this car is a pleasure to be sat in and to drive.

This Evora is now a couple of thousand miles in and it’s now memorable how much attention it receives. Maybe it’s the colour which does stand out but after the official handover of this car to TLF from Lotus UK Territory Manager Scott Walker at the Lotus Festival, a short drive home had kids on bikes giving me the thumbs up and a ‘nice car mister’ (always a great barometer of coolness!) and a group of bikers chase me down to ask about the car and listen to the engine note as we had a ‘rev-off’! There are quite a few occasions when parked up there will be people either up close and looking through the window or surveying from afar. You know they’re looking and when passing groups on the pavement, you’ll also see them watch you pass if you glance in the mirror, it quite literally is a head-turner.

What I’d forgotten from the last outings in the MY12 car was how complimentary the Evora is to the driver when ‘pushing on’. You really can enjoy the performance with the car doing most of the work and as a driver it pushes your performance envelope beyond what you may have previously enjoyed. The IPS has also seen some updates to the software that runs the gearchange and most noticeable are the very fast upchanges (we believe to be 60ms) which, while no DSG change are quick enough to be almost not be there. The auto-blip on downchange now seems to match the engine speed much better. It’s a real joy to accelerate hard and blip up through the gears with the paddles and there’s a satisfying ‘crack’ from the exhaust as it moves up through the change. This coupled with a more vocal supercharger which emits that lovely whine under load adds to the feeling that you’re in a proper sports car and a fast one at that.

I’ve managed a few long drives and fuel economy now seems better than remembered from the previous Supercharged Evoras. A trip from mid-Kent to the coast of Norfolk saw an average of 28MPG displayed on the dash readout which seems reasonable for a 345BHP 3.5l Supercharged V6 and makes the car more economical for touring. The ‘miles remaining’ display on the dash is over optimistic though – when filling the 60l tank the display maxes out at 345 miles to go and remains like this for the first 50-ish miles however when it catches up it does so with a vengeance. In reality, a tank will last for around 300 miles with normal driving and when being a little more enthusiastic the car will need to be refilled after 220-240 miles. This gives an evonomy of between 18 and 22MPG with those ranges. This doesn’t account for the fact we refill when the light comes on, not when the engine cuts out from a lack of fuel so those are conservative figures.

That trip to Norfolk was on the motorway and dual-carriageway through some roadworks (which seem to be taking their time, imagine!). The return journey was a more interesting route through Suffolk, the route being Helmingham to Eye to Stradbroke to Heveningham to Halesworth to Beccles. This was a great journey and gave me the chance to have a real workout, for the car and me! The roads between the towns were the quintessential collection of English A and B roads which meant some nice, well sighted straights and tricky, well and more often adversely cambered corners with a surface that you’d not be playing billiards on. In my opinion, this is the sort of drive which really shows the Evora for what it is, the car’s gracefulness over these types of roads standing out. Other cars would be sizing up which bush to throw you into but the Evora laps up the bumps, giving you what you need to know about the grip levels and surface but keeping to itself the trauma the suspension is dealing with for you. It really was the case that I would have liked to turn around and drive it again, this time just a little bit faster knowing the car will have more to give, even if I didn’t!

There have been a couple of issues so far. The first is that the alarm had a moment (well, a couple of days) of madness and would go off by itself for no reason. This seems to have passed but it’s an issue that is well documented and will be covered by the warranty. It happens when you unlock the car and relock it without starting and the alarm doesn’t fully reset and the workaround is to just cycle the ignition on and off when the car is open, this resets the alarm fully. Another issue was that the Evora ABS and DPM don’t like rolling roads! There are 2 main types of rolling road and the one we tried is the one the Evora doesn’t get on with, clipping the power output down to 285BHP as the front wheels were stationary and the rear wheels were doing 150MPH! The solution to this is to either pull a bunch of fuses (not ideal!) or to find a rolling road with powered front rollers, the easier solution as the sensors on the wheels will react normally with them all spinning at the same speed! This problem was evident on other manufacturer’s cars on the day; the Evora isn’t unique with this and you can imagine the car’s software thinks you are doing the mother of all wheelspins and wants to protect itself from your errant ways!

It’s worth noting that the Launch Edition Evora came with a woeful Alpine/Blackbird infotainment system which really was hard work. This then changed to a better Alpine, then a very good Pioneer and is now back to Alpine again. This new system is great, it just works. The bluetooth is always connecting, calls are clear and easy even on the motorway (with adjustable mic and speaker volumes through an in-call menu) and it sounds good. Even the satnav works nicely, giving you traffic diversions if required and a nice contoured map display. Perhaps a larger nick in the glovebox for the USB cable to slot through would be nice, I fear it will pinch the cable but it is big enough, I’m being picky now but I just make sure that it’s my cable that extends out to the phone, easy and cheap to replace if needed!

We’ve got the Evora for another couple of months and hopefully more of you will get the chance to see it out and about at many TLF events. So far it was lucky enough to be on the posh lawns of Syon House for the inimitable Salon Prive with Lotus dealer Bell and Colvill and also on show at the Goodwood Revival with our friends from RSR Spa. If you see it about, come and say hello and have a look around, we’re happy to take any Lotus fans out for a drive too so you get an idea where the now 5 year old Evora line has made it to.

The Sports Racer is only available in the EU and in the UK is priced at £68,850 in S IPS guise following this year’s price increase from Lotus. You get the Sports and Tech pack and 2+2 seating included and at the moment if you order a new one there’s 3 years servicing and a 3 year warranty included. The 0% APR 50/50 finance plan is also being very well taken up so it’s a good time to buy one.