Lotus Emira V6 review: as pretty as a Ferrari but a fraction of the price

It’s so pretty everyone assumes it’s a Ferrari — but it’s a fraction of the price and won’t tear your skin off.

It’s a looker: the Lotus Emira V6

When it comes to architecture, some people get all gooey-eyed over the enormous majesty of medieval cathedrals, some fawn over the latest glass and steel skyscrapers and some over the four-by-three simplicity of classic Georgian style. One man came to my daughter’s wedding last year mainly because he’d always wanted to see the stained glass in Chipping Norton’s church.

For me, though, it’s bridges. They fascinate me. I don’t care whether they’re ancient humpbacks over a beck in the Yorkshire Dales or gigantic transoceanic efforts with Chinese names that we can’t pronounce properly. I have stood for hours under Brunel’s masterpiece in Maidenhead, which carries the main railway line from London to Bristol and excites me so much that I can’t even breathe properly.

Built in the late 19th century, it features in the Turner painting Rain, Steam and Speed, and its arches remain, even to this day, the flattest ever built anywhere in the entire world. They are 128ft across at the bottom but only 24ft high, so when you watch a modern 200-tonne intercity train rumble over them, you cannot help thinking, “Why doesn’t everything just fall into the river?”

Lisa knows about this weird love of bridges, which is why, last night, she sent me a link to a piece that lists the 25 best in order. It’s nonsense, as you’d expect, because it puts the Constitution Bridge in Venice at No 1. It’s lovely, for sure, but the best? Nah. Not even close.

Some say that for a bridge to top the list it must perform an important function, such as linking San Francisco with the more northern extremities of California, or Sweden with Denmark, but I don’t. My favourite bridge in the whole wide world connects Barton (population 11,300) with Hessle (population 15,000). It is therefore pretty much useless, but my God, it’s beautiful.

I’m talking about the Humber Bridge. When it was built it was the longest suspension bridge in the world. Its towers are so far apart the designers had to take into account the curvature of the Earth. And there was enough steel in its construction to circumnavigate the Earth. And none of this matters because when you stand at one end on a misty morning and look at it spearing off into the North Sea haar, it’s otherworldly. It makes my hair shiver and moons me with its gracefulness. Which brings me neatly on to the Lotus Emira.

From the front

It’s a strange car, this, because it’s so Humber Bridge-pretty everyone assumes it’s a Ferrari. But it’s billed as a rival to the Porsche Cayman GTS. And yet it’s a Lotus, and what does that even mean these days? When I was a small boy and Diana Rigg used to drive around my television set in a Lotus Elan, I was never quite sure which one was causing such a funny feeling in my tummy. Diana probably. That said, the Elan was a tremendous car and really cast the mould for Lotuses to come; it was light and dangerous and unreliable and fun. Basically Kiefer Sutherland with headlamps.

And then along came the Esprit, which was completely different. I adored it, especially the final version, which had a force-fed V8 engine. So you got hours of turbo lag followed by a terrifying burst of adrenaline and speed and noise, and all the time you were sitting there thinking, “Is this steering wheel going to come off?”

After this Lotus went back to making small light cars, and then it was bought by a Malaysian car company and didn’t seem to make very much at all, and now it belongs to the same Chinese outfit that owns Volvo. And it has produced a mid-engined supercar that isn’t actually billed as a supercar.

... and the back

Despite this confusion, I’d heard good things. My neighbour Harry [Metcalfe] from YouTube bought one and kept making squeaking noises when I talked to him about it. So I was very excited when I learnt I could borrow one over Christmas. Then very disexcited when it arrived at the exact same moment as the yuletide bug that wiped us all out.

As a result I didn’t drive the car as much as I would have liked, but you don’t have to go far to realise it’s pretty special. Actually, strike that. You have to go plenty far because this is the first car I’ve driven in ages that has a manual gearbox. An actual stick poking out of the floor and a clutch pedal. It was like reacquainting myself with a landline.

But once we’d stopped kangarooing away from junctions and stalling on hills and swearing, I learnt this really isn’t a supercar. The performance is brisk but it doesn’t tear your skin off. It’s a fun speed, a sports car speed.

And then there’s the engine. That’s not supercary either because it’s the 3.5-litre V6 from a Toyota Camry. Yes, it’s been supercharged, but it doesn’t make an especially good noise and can at times be a bit recalcitrant to get going. In the fullness of time you’ll be able to choose a four-cylinder AMG engine and I’ve a feeling it may be a better bet. Cheaper too.

Handling? I know people get all wistful and interesting about the way Lotuses go round corners but I’ve never really understood why. Even the Elise, regarded by many to be the best-handling car of all time, was awfully understeery if you really gave it the beans. And when I learnt that more than 60 per cent of the Emira’s weight sat over the back wheels, I figured I’d be in for more of the same. Wrong. The front is very pointy, which means you can, and I did, play a little bit with the back. Again this made it feel more like a sports car than the supercar it resembles.

Inside the cabin

And it’s the same story on the inside, which you can access very easily, even if you’re tall and a bit fat, like me. There’s no quilted leather or hand-stitched door panels. It’s very no-nonsense. So no-nonsense in fact that some of the plastic does look and feel like it’s come off a 1972 home stereo system.

This would be a bad thing, of course, if the Emira was eye-rollingly expensive. But it isn’t. Prices start at $169,990 - the AMG-powered version will be significantly less - so you could have three for the price of one scum-spec Ferrari. It’s very good value for money.

And that brings me back to the subject of bridges. We tend to think that if they are fancy, or delicate or architecturally interesting in some way, then they are bound to cost more than Richard Branson’s space rocket. But Lotus has proved with this car that you can build something amazing to behold and perfectly serviceable for the price of an ordinary saloon.

So can we have a new Humber Bridge please? Maybe as a replacement for that third-rate garden ornament they put up over London’s Hogarth Roundabout in 1971 as a temporary solution. Or, better still, across the River Thames at Hammersmith.

Lotus Emira V6

Engine: 3.5-litre V6 supercharged (298kW/420Nm)

Fuel economy: 11.2 litres per 100km

Transmission: 6-speed manual

Price: $169,990

Rating: 4/5

THE SUNDAY TIMES, LONDON