These new Lotus Europa variants have been designed and developed especially for European customers and will be sold exclusively across Europe from June 2008. The Europa is now available to a larger target audience with the entry level car providing a more accessible way to own a Europa and the SE designed to appeal to those who are even more style conscious and want increased levels of performance.
Mike Kimberley, CEO of Group Lotus plc commented: “As the true driver will know, this Europa range, offers access to Lotus’ unique DNA for those who perceive the Elise and Exige as a little too uncompromising for everyday use. The new Europa SE sits at the more refined end of the Lotus spectrum, providing a terrific mix of performance, agility and style, but incorporates Lotus’s values and heritage”.
The Europa has a mid-mounted 2 litre turbo charged engine, tuned in the SE with an all new calibration to 225 PS and with 300 Nm of torque to offer effortless cruising capability. Even though the Europa is engineered with more relaxed driving characteristics it provides amazing performance, with 0-60 mph in the SE dispatched in 5.5s (0-100 km/h in 5.7s estimated) and
the sprint to 100 mph (160 km/h) taking just 13.0s (estimated). Given the legal opportunity to stretch its legs, the Europa SE will hit a top speed of 143 mph (estimated).
The Europa now offers increased levels of comfort over the Elise and Exige whilst enhancing the focused driving experience that you would expect from a Lotus. These models are both equipped with race car derived double wishbone suspension to give an exceptional driving feel with Lotus DNA. The sleek Europa body work, together with the assistance of the flat underbody, generates positive downforce to provide balanced handling at speed.
The Europa SE has attractive and light weight new wheels, which are shod with wider, high performance tyres, for increased levels of grip. These new high performance wheels are larger with 17” rims up front, and larger 18” rims on the rear. The new wheels house high performance AP Racing four pot brakes and larger (308 mm) diameter discs.
The SE interior has been updated by Lotus Design with a stylish new design that works in harmony with the premium avant-garde Ice White of the Geneva Show car. The interior is finished using 4 hides of soft, lightweight high-grade leather, to ensure that every surface has a luxuriant tactile feel. As with all 2008 Lotus road cars, the Europa and Europa SE come with driver and passenger airbags and an engine start button as standard. The Europa interior is furnished with leather sports seats and comes as standard with a high quality stereo system.
About Group Lotus plc:
The main operating subsidiary of Group Lotus plc is Lotus Cars Ltd, which has two operating divisions - Lotus Engineering and Lotus Cars. Lotus Engineering is an internationally recognised automotive engineering consultancy based in Norfolk, UK. Global facilities include those in Michigan (USA), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), China and offices in Germany and Japan, with rapid expansion in new territories such as South East Asia and the Gulf States.
Lotus Engineering provides comprehensive and versatile consultancy services to many of the world's OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers, offering a full engineering service from initial concept and project design through development and integration of the complete vehicle to meet all worldwide markets and customers to full production. This includes third party 'niche vehicle' engineering and manufacture worldwide.
Lotus Cars builds world class, prestige, high performance sports cars for sale in 37 countries. These include the iconic Lotus Elise, and the Exige and Europa. Lotus is a global high-tech company, expanding rapidly and committed to driving forward technology for both Lotus Cars and its Engineering clients, spearheading research into such areas as hybrids, electric vehicles and renewable fuels.
0 коммент.