the-best-handling-car-in-the-world

How good is the Lotus Evora Sport 410? 'Just sublime,' says Top Gear's Ollie Kew.

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• By Editors
 
• From Top Gear

3 November 2016

Earlier this year, Lotus Cars CEO Jean-Marc Gales made a dramatic announcement: The perennially cash-poor British sports car maker he ran was poised to make a profit — something that hasn't happened in 20 years. The key to Gales' success — after only two years on the job in Hethel — was a combination of judicious cost-cutting and some very savvy optimisation of the marque's three ageing models: the Elise roadster, the Exige hardtop and the Evora sporting coupe.

TopGear.com's Ollie Kew recently took the wheel of Gales' latest masterstroke: the fearsome Evora Sport 410. "To pigeonhole it with known-quantity rivals," writes Kew, "it’s an Evora with less weight and more power. [It's] priced at £82,000 — when Porsche Cayman GT4s are still swapping hands for north of £90k." Specifically, the Sport 410 features a 3.5-litre supercharged V6 producing 410 horsepower — up 10 from the more civilised Evora 400, which became the fastest model in Lotus history when it debuted at the Geneva motor show last year.

Ollie's thoughts after a few miles with the Sport 410? "Just sublime," he writes. "What a car."

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Lotus Evora Sport 410

On the gearbox options
You can option a six-speed paddleshift automatic. Don’t. The Sport 410’s weighty, tactile manual shift is leagues more precise than the vague operation of those in the first Evoras. The same linkage that blessed last year’s Exige Sport 350, with a truly world-class manual gearbox, is back in vogue here.

On the weight-shedding
The glass partition between engine room and humans is now one pane thick, not two. The forged wheels are made by the same outfit that does wheels for the McLaren P1 and save a total of 7.2kg. [There's more:] -12kg for the rear deck, -2kg for the roof, -2kg for the front access panel, and so on and so on. Even the badges have been binned for stickers. As standard it’s £8,500 more and 70kg less than an Evora 400. And don’t forget, the 400 dropped a massive 42kg versus the original Evora when it appeared last year.

On its track-ready upgrades
There are bigger brakes, Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres, a 5mm ride drop and more negative camber and toe-in. Though the springs are carried over from the Evora 400, the fact they’re supporting a lighter car give an effective increase in spring rate, and there’s a big shift in damper rates, with a 25% rebound increase up front and 20% increase in compression out back. Meanwhile, the new ducktail rear end (12mm taller, 38mm longer) and front splitter increase downforce to 18kg at 100mph, from 8.6kg before. Downforce at the car’s top speed is 64kg, despite an overall reduction in drag.

On the interior
This is the nicest Evora cabin I’ve ever been in, partly because the original car’s amateurish cockpit was completely updated when the Evora was facelifted into ‘400’ guise last year, but mostly because stripping it out works wonders. Deleting the air-con and sat-nav (both of which you can add back in for £1500 and £500 respectively) doesn’t just help towards that headline 1,325kg kerbweight. It also means no dated, fiddly infotainment carbuncles inside. Blanking plates for the win.

On the noise
Occupants are bathed in a building crescendo of V6 wail that’s properly satisfying to wring out. There’s reward for reaching up beyond 6,000rpm, a sense of building fury and volume that’s addictive, but it’s not as harsh or overdubbed as the other British supercharged V6 sports car – the Jaguar F-Type. There’ll be an optional, 10kg-lighter titanium exhaust on the options list for true audiophiles.

On the speed
Top speed is 190mph in the long-legged manual, or 177mph in the shorter-geared auto. The manual does 0-60mph in 4.0 seconds, and the auto shaves a tenth from that. In a world where [Porsche] 911s, now they’re turbocharged, can score sub-fours to 60mph (and even then, be outrun by Audi RS3s), the raw numbers won’t stutter your heartbeat, but with 302lb-ft thwacking you in back from a sensible 3500rpm, the Sport 410 still feels seriously quick.

This machine could make a strong claim to be the best handling car in the world. There. I said it.

On the handling
Just sublime. Yup, it’s the usual Lotus hallmarks of astoundingly communicative steering and a relatively playful yet utterly trustworthy chassis that’s pretty beguiling. But more than that, I’m not sure I’ve driven any mid-engined car which gives such clear and honest messages about how much grip you’ve got to play with, and when it’ll mildly push on at the front (easily reined back in by trimming the gas) or arch wide at the rear on corner exit. This is one of the great mid-engined sports car chassis. Its balance is spellbinding. Honestly, I could go on for days about the messages pouring from the steering, but I’ll spare you. Suffice to say, this machine could make a strong claim to be the best handling car in the world. There. I said it.

On its place in the market
[Lotus is] in profit for the first time in decades, and there’ll be a new Elise in 2020. In the meantime, [the company] needs to make not just good sports cars, but world-class sports cars. Nothing less than sublime output will keep the lights on at Hethel. Fortunately, the latest one, in the carbon-swathed shape of the Evora 410, is one of the best yet. It’s right up there with Porsche’s best, as a driver’s car, a Sunday treat.

Read Ollie Kew's full story here, and if you haven't already done so, join the TG community on Facebook.