+1.

I like Lotus and if done properly, a tongue in cheek jab to Porsche might've worked but this is plain stupid.

 

i didnt think it was a put down. im not even sure if comparison to porsche's residual value is a good thing to begin with.

lotus actually holds its value well i think. probably even better than porsche since there aren't too many of them.

evora will be a pretty nice line up and a step up in the market for lotus. it still doesn't compare well to porsche. some cayman buyers may cross shop though. i'd rather own the evora than a cayman imo. caymans are everywhere.

 

They can, but they haven't built the car to do it yet.

Everyone and their sister has compared the Evora to the Cayman S. The Cayman is just a better car. The Evora looks cool, and as usual has one of the best suspension setups and overall feedback of just about any road car going. But, it's heavy, and dog slow compared to the Cayman.

Lotus should have come out of the gate with a 350-400hp Evora, either sporting a turbo four pot or a blown V6. A 400hp Evora at the same price point (or a ~60k 350hp) would make for a much tougher decision versus the Cayman.

Lotus' strength is that they're not stuck in a design hole like Porsche, who for any of several reasons needs to make everything look like a damn 911, and hence is stuck with the packaging and dynamic issues of that platform. They're great cars, but there are many ways in which Lotus could build a better sports car. They also have the advantage of being able to rapidly prototype stuff and bring new and interesting things to market a lot faster than Porsche can.

Unfortunately, Lotus doesn't have anywhere near the resources to design and build said cars, so they need to be cautious and keep their design risks fairly minor. They've also unfortunately been infected with the green plague of late, which only makes matters worse.

What Lotus needs to do is make sure the new Esprit, if they do actually build it, isn't a flop. It needs to be a 100-120k, 550-600hp, very light insanity rocket that'll nuke and pave 997TTs, R8s, etc all day long right out of the box. Doing that will cost them a bunch of money, as they'll almost certainly need to develop their own engine again, but if they fill that market it will go a long way to bringing a lot more Porsche (and other) converts to, or back to Lotus.