How Matt Windle is putting Lotus back on the map

Unashamedly benchmarked against rivals including the Porsche 718 Cayman and Porsche 911, the Emira will offer the choice between a new turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine (Windle remains coy as to where it’s coming from) and the Evora’s supercharged V6. The smaller engine will be exclusively available with a dual-clutch gearbox; the V6 will keep the option of either manual or fully automatic transmission.

“We’ve tried to cover as many bases as possible,” Windle says. “Two powerplants will enable us to cover most of that market. It’s a Lotus that you can live with; we’ve given it broader appeal, but it’s still a fantastic sports car with a range of different models that will go from a base spec up to an R.”

While the Emira’s everyday usability will be boosted by various active safety features, it also keeps some longer-established technology – including, like the on Evija, electrohydraulic power steering on the basis of superior feel.

“Yes, EPS [electric power steering] would be easier,” admits Windle, “but we’re holding out. It won’t be for long; the GSR2 [European vehicle safety] regulations coming in 2027 bring driver assistance, so you will have to have EPS. But these things really do matter here.”

One surprising omission from the Emira plan is a roadster version – something Windle acknowledges was a difficult decision, although one that will ultimately be remedied by other new products.

Hethel has already started work on a next-generation electric sports car platform, with the plan to jointly create Lotus and Alpine versions. (Windle worked on the stillborn Caterham version of the Alpine A110, “so I know how joint ventures can go wrong”.) But before that, we will see Chinese-built Lotus models created on the brand’s new bespoke platform, Electric Performance Architecture. Windle says that the first of these – the Type 132 – is already substantially developed.

“We need to go into different markets and we need to go into different segments,” he says. “We need to increase our revenue through volume and create a virtuous circle where we get the revenue to invest in the product.

“We still plan for Hethel to be our sports car manufacturing facility and our engineering headquarters, but we will be having a manufacturing facility in China, in Wuhan, that will be producing the lifestyle vehicles for us, and that will be a Geely facility.”

The crucial detail is, Windle asserts, Lotus’s leadership of the process: “It shows the ambition of Lotus that we could easily have taken Geely platforms and developed cars on them, but they wouldn’t give you a true Lotus. We’re going to develop our own platforms and see that those platforms are scalable and flexible, and we’d love any manufacturers that want to do electric sports cars or lifestyle EVs to talk to us and see how we could share that platform.”

So, can an electric crossover or SUV be regarded as a true Lotus? “We can do premium luxury, but we can also do intelligent technology that will make a car a Lotus,” says Windle. “Yes, it will be heavier than a standard Lotus, but it will be the lightest car in its class. The driving attributes will be set by Gavan [Kershaw, attributes and product integrity director], and you know how he feels about core Lotus DNA; and it will look fantastic. So there’s no reason why we can’t do that.”

While the Evija is a technical tour de force, it hasn’t proved to be a sales hit yet. But Windle insists that the decision to create it and the funds spent engineering it will have been justified even if it doesn’t reach its production limit.

“We haven’t allocated 130 to sales; we said that we would never build more than that, and we won’t build any that aren’t ordered,” he says. “The Evija isn’t really based around sales figures; it’s what it does for the brand. It’s a halo product, one that shows where we’re going in the future. We wanted to put Lotus back on the map with it, and that’s what we’re doing – and that will increase later this year when we prove the performance level.”

Another heart-over-head decision is motorsport, with Windle agreeing that Lotus’s lack of factory racing activity doesn’t match with the brand’s historic legacy. He says: “It’s a huge part of our heritage – every day, I walk past the big sign outside the entrance with the seven [Formula 1] world championships on it and the pictures of the cars. That nags at me.”

Rejoining F1 is unlikely any time soon, but Windle says Lotus should make a more modest return to GT4 racing with the Emira next year.

It might seem odd to be asking about this in his first interview, but the proven hotness of Lotus’s hot seat makes the question of Windle’s legacy with the firm seem justifiable. How does he want to both change it and pass it on when the time comes?