Artist Envisions a New Take on the Lotus Caterham 7

Much in the same way as Morgan’s pre-Supersports models, the Lotus / Caterham 7 has remained relatively unchanged throughout its long life. A lightweight body with no fixed doors or roof, a flat windscreen, exposed front wheels and a four cylinder motor embody the Seven’s design and engineering philosophy.

Diseno-Art has drawn up a nice design study in the form of the “New 7”, a vehicle designed to expand and complement the existing range of 7-badged vehicles.

With larger proportions and more refinement than the archaic (yet still beautiful) lines of the current generation, the New 7 is designed to be uniquely tailored to each customer’s needs and offer a high level of customer service while still holding to the brand’s philosophy of lightweight, simple and fun.

The New 7 incorporates body parts that are easily removable for maintenance, a direct injection four-cylinder engine (with room for a variety of other types of engine at the client’s request), rear wheel drive and a manual transmission. It’s all very believable and not as farfetched as some of the design study’s we’ve featured on the site before.

You can check out our gallery below and leave a comment if you wish.

By Tristan Hankins

Source: Diseno-Art

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Lotus to Replace Evora with Elan in 2017

Lotus’ most recent new sports car, the Evora, will stay into production until at least 2017, when it will be replaced with the new Elan according to the company’s boss Danny Bahar. This changes the initial plan that called for the Evora to be replaced as early as 2012.

rel="nofollow" Bahar also told UK magazine Autocar that Lotus is building its own V8 instead of using Toyota’s unit from the Lexus IS-F, as research from the Paris Motor Show floor concerning the new Esprit revealed that customers were unwilling to pay the price for a $100,000+ supercar powered by a Toyota engine.

The new Esprit will be launched, if everything goes according to plan, in 2013. The new engine, according to Wolf Zimmerman who heads the engineering department, is 40% smaller than the Toyota’s, solving packaging problems. Zimmerman also added that it could form the basis for a new four-cylinder unit, being effectively one bank of the V8, to power smaller models in the range such as the new Elise and Exige.

Bahar also confirmed that the Ethos city car will indeed enter production, selling as a Lotus small-volume luxury small car, probably as a pure EV or a hybrid, in Europe and as a more affordable Proton with conventional internal combustion engines in Asia.

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